Metal-organic frameworks—spongelike crystals with pores that can trap or filter specific molecules—are being turned into membranes and films for fuel cells, lighting, and chemical separations, but nobody can see exactly what happens where the crystals meet other materials. These hybrid materials could replace energy-hungry distillation, make cheaper fuel cells, and protect next-generation LEDs, but only if engineers understand how molecules move through them. The problem is that the critical interfaces and amorphous regions are invisible to standard imaging techniques. This project builds a nanoscale version of electron pair distribution analysis, combining cryogenic microscopy with precession electron optics, to map atomic structure across MOF/polymer, MOF/glass, and MOF/perovskite boundaries. The researcher will track water transport through a working fuel cell membrane in real time. If successful, this work will reveal the structure-function rules needed to rationally design MOF composites. That could accelerate the development of low-energy chemical separations, robust proton-conducting membranes, and stable perovskite-based lighting—technologies that quietly underpin industrial efficiency and consumer electronics. The project is fundamentally about seeing the unseen in disordered materials, a capability that has historically unlocked unexpected applications in catalysis, energy storage, and sensing.
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Reducing emissions requires advances in separations (replace energy-intensive distillations), fuel cells (use robust, low-cost membranes), and high-efficiency lighting (encapsulate halide perovskites), all relying on efficient control of chemical transport. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), consisting of metal nodes linked by organic molecules in characteristically porous networks, are poised to accelerate energy savings if we can harness their structural and chemical selectivity. Yet device integration is challenging. Most often prepared as crystalline powders, fusing MOFs with polymers or glasses made from other MOFs creates device-compatible forms. In turn, interfacial interactions boost gas uptake, proton conductivity, and luminescence. However, the defining non-periodic structures remain unresolved. This project will unveil the microscopic structural variety in MOF composites by determining the atomic structure of amorphous components, distortions in crystals, and changes at interfaces. My ambitious research programme will build a nanoscale version of the technique known as electron pair distribution function analysis for MOF/MOF, MOF/polymer, and MOF/perovskite composites using scanning transmission electron microscopy. Now uniting cryogenic, low-dose microscopy and precession electron optics, I will make direct microscopic observations to answer questions on how MOFs melt and form glasses, how guest molecules move through MOFs, and how molecules traverse MOF/polymer membranes. Together with dynamic and multi-scale microscopies, I will combine these tools to track water transport in a model fuel cell membrane. Only through developing nanometre-resolved imaging of amorphous microstructure (domain size, shape, composition, and atomic structure descriptors across interfaces) will it be possible to determine precise structure-function relationships and rationally design host-guest and matrix-filler interactions to realise the potential of MOF technologies.
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