Scientists would like to apply the same principles by which baking soda
removes food odors from refrigerators or silica powder keeps moisture
away from electronic devices to scrub carbon dioxide from the exhaust
gases of fossil fuel power plants.
An excellent candidate for this task
is the class of materials known as multivariate metal organic frameworks
or MTV-MOFs, which were discovered by Omar Yaghi, one of the world's
most cited chemists. However, finding and synthesizing the best MTV-MOFs
for this task has been a major challenge. That discouraging
state-of-affairs is about to change.
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| Berkeley scientists have developed a method that accurately predicts the adsorptive properties of crystalline MTV-MOF systems. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) |
Credit: http://newscenter.lbl.gov