Scientific success!

Marzena Pander is a master’s studies graduate at the University of Wrocław and is currently working on her PhD thesis at the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Wrocław under the supervision of prof. Wojciech Bury.

The student’s work concerns itself with the design, synthesis, and characterisation of porous materials – MOF (Metal-Organic Framework), which are a class of porous coordination polymers with interesting and unique properties. Although the first examples of MOF materials were only described less than 30 years ago, this field of science is growing rapidly and already includes more than 100,000 different structures. Thanks to the precise design of organic and inorganic building units, which can be treated like chemical Lego blocks, it is possible to prepare a virtually unlimited number of new structures, and only the chemist’s imagination can be the limiting factor. This also provides a great opportunity to construct advanced materials with carefully selected properties that can solve important problems related to human life. This is why MOFs are being investigated for a wide variety of purposes, including gas and vapour sorption and separation, heterogeneous catalysis, as well as biomedical uses.

As part of her research project, she is designing various strategies for post-synthetic modification of inorganic or organic cell junctions to introduce new functionalities into the already known MOF structures. Her idea is that a simple reorganisation of the interior of the material can give it a completely new use. Post-synthetic modification methods usually occur under much milder reaction conditions, e.g., at room temperature, allowing the introduction of more sensitive functional groups that would not be available through de novo synthesis of the MOF material. One such strategy for post-synthetic modification of inorganic junctions is the option of ligand incorporation in the presence of a solvent (the SALI method, or Solvent-Assisted Ligand Incorporation).

She used the SALI method as a convenient tool to prepare an effective heterogeneous catalyst for the cyclization of carbon dioxide to epoxides. This chemical reaction is important from an environmental perspective because it uses carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and transforms it into a product of industrial importance. As part of the research, the student prepared a series of eight different catalysts, the properties and reactivity of which I examined in detail. Furthermore, the selected catalysts showed good activity even at atmospheric pressure of carbon dioxide at room temperature, significantly reducing the economic cost of the process. Results of this research have been published in an international journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (DOI: 10.1021/acsami.Oc0437, IF: 10.383).

The SALI method has also enabled research into the use of zirconium metal-organic networks as drug carriers.The selected drug molecules contained carboxyl groups and were therefore able to be directly coordinated to the inorganic nodes of the MOF material. This resulted in elongated release profiles of the drug molecules tested, and the results were published in the international journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

The final project related to the PhD thesis was the development of a new strategy for obtaining MOF/polymer hybrids for the neutralisation of combat gases. The creation of hybrid systems of metal-organic networks with organic polymers aims to improve the stability and flexibility of the hybrids created while maintaining the unique properties of the chosen metal-organic network. The PhD student’s research on this issue was carried out as part of the Preludium 19 Competition’s grant she acquired in 2021.The developed strategy for obtaining hybrid systems preserves their porosity and offers the possibility of using them for the catalytic degradation of organophosphorus chemical warfare agents.The MOF/polymer materials prepared in this way (in collaboration with the research group of Prof. Jorge Navarro, University of Granada, Spain) were used to coat selected fabrics, resulting in water-resistant composite materials that can be used to produce protective clothing for soldiers and civilians. Results of this research were published in the beginning of this year, in a journal called Materials Horizons (DOI 10.1039/02MH01202B, IF: 15.717).

Translated by Weronika Maciejewska (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.