I am working on growing MOF crystals based on hexatopic linker for different metals. Upon using some synthetic conditions it gave fast precipitation into powder material after heating for half hour.
My question is how to modulate the synthesis to grow single crystals for Zr, Fe, Al in my case?
I used metal salt:linker as 10:1
using modulator 100 equivalent to metal salt.
Hello, Mr. El Sayed M.
Basically, the key of getting single crystals is SLOW DOWN the crystallization process.There are several strategies:
1. Use lower doses and lower concentration of reactants, especially metal salts in your case.
2. Slow down the cooling process (needed!) and prolong heating time (maybe).
3. For Zr, Fe and Al, a certain amount of acid is needed for preventing hydrolyzation. Too much acid will inhibit the coordination reactions.
Maybe there are more methods.. but these 3 points above came to my mind first.
Hopefully it will be helpful. Keep trying! And good luck!
Kevin
If you have access to google scholar, do a search on "MOF single crystals". There are a LOT of articles out there. The journal, "CrystEngComm" is pretty much dedicated to how to engineer single crystals with desired properties. Here is one: Article Uniform and Directional Growth of Centimeter-Sized Single Cr...
ere . There are as many specific answers as there are MOFS and a lot of experimentation is needed. Kevin Yonghong Xiao gave some good general answers, but the specifics will depend on your system.- Badges
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