Reticular Chemistry in Action: A Hydrolytically Stable MOF Capturing Twice Its Weight in Adsorbed Water

Abstract

Summary Hydrolytically stable adsorbents, with notable water uptake, are of prime importance and offer great potential for many water-adsorption-related applications. Nevertheless, deliberate construction of tunable porous solids with high porosity and high stability remains challenging. Here, we present the successful deployment of reticular chemistry to address this demand: we constructed Cr-soc-MOF-1, a chemically and hydrolytically stable chromium-based metal-organic framework (MOF) with underlying soc topology. Prominently, Cr-soc-MOF-1 offers the requisite thermal and chemical stability concomitant with unique adsorption properties, namely extraordinary high porosity (apparent surface area of 4,549 m2/g) affording a water vapor uptake of 1.95 g/g at 70% relative humidity. This exceptional water uptake is maintained over more than 100 adsorption-desorption cycles. Markedly, the adsorbed water can be fully desorbed by just the simple reduction of the relative humidity at 25°C. Cr-soc-MOF-1 offers great potential for use in applications pertaining to water vapor control in enclosed and confined spaces and dehumidification.