Metal-Organic Materials: From Design Principles to Practical Applications

The works presented herein outline rational design approaches towards construction of solid state materials with great potentials to answer some of current demanding applications. Specifically, the materials targeted are metal−organic materials with desirable structural features and functional properties. Metal−organic materials are constructed from organic linker molecules and metal ions under relatively mild solvothermal reaction conditions that preserve the structural features of the relatively simple building blocks. Therefore, it is feasible to conceive a retrospective pathway of the reaction and thus deconstruct the desirable structures into simple, chemicallyrelevant, building blocks in an approach known as the molecular building block approach. Due to the large number of reaction variables, e.g. concentration, stoichiometry of reactants, nature of solvents, counterions, temperature, etc., it is very significant for advancements in the field to employ a systematic investigation strategy to asses and better understand the relevant roles played by the various reaction conditions towards construction of the targeted materials. The modular nature of metal−organic materials allows for tuning their properties to meet a specific application through careful design of the molecular precursors, i.e. information encoding at the molecular level. Research in this area is highly interdisciplinary where synthetic organic chemistry, in silico modeling, and various analytical techniques merge together to afford better understanding of the basic science involved and eventually to result in enhanced control over the properties of targeted materials