Developing Synthetic Methods to Prepare Discrete Metal-Organic Nanotubes

Metal-organic nanotubes (MONTs) are an emerging class of discrete materials that are the 1D variant of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MONTs have potential to become an alternative 1D material to carbon nanotubes, metal oxide nanotubes, and boron nitride nanotubes because they possess an organic ligand that can be functionalized and tuned for specific applications. Despite this potential, only a handful of structures have been reported and only two examples of discrete MONTs exist in the literature. It is thus imperative to develop general methods to prepare and characterize discrete MONTs to bring them to the forefront of the scientific literature.

Efforts were directed to design ligands that will readily facilitate MONT dispersion post-synthetically, or by hindering their crystal packing as they form from solution. Our group has previously reported 5 MONT structures that employ semi-rigid, di-triazole ligands, and by employing isoreticular synthesis, our goal was to determine which structural characteristics will direct MONTs to form discrete nanotubes or small bundles. A collaboration with the Dadmun group here at UTK was established to employ smallangle scattering methods to study their kinetics and growth, information that will be useful to guide future efforts to prepare discrete MONTs.