metal-organic frameworks

Engineers at the University of Vienna have developed a new composite material that makes an efficient filter for removing organic pollutants from water. The system uses super-porous “nano-sponges” embedded on a sheet of graphene.

Scientists have developed an efficient new way to convert methane into methanol at room temperature. The technique could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a cleaner way to make key products.

Researchers at Australia’s CSIRO have demonstrated a method for protecting the integrity of vaccines against high temperatures. A proof-of-concept study has shown the method keeps vaccines viable at temperatures up to 37 °C (98 °F) for three months.

Engineers at Dartmouth College have developed a new crystal structure that can stretch to twice its size when it encounters a specific chemical. The team says that the material could be used to selectively absorb impurities in water.

Researchers have developed a new type of vaccine against urinary tract infections that has shown promise in tests in mice. The treatment uses a whole dead bacterial cell, wrapped in a protective cage, to trigger an immune response.

Researchers at Lancaster University have developed a new material that can store energy for months, and potentially years, at a time. The material can be activated by light, and then release the pent-up energy on demand in the form of heat.

Getting CRISPR into cells can be challenging. Now Australian researchers have packaged the tool inside porous materials called metal organic frameworks (MOFs) coated in a green tea compound, and used it to silence key genes in prostate cancer cells.

It's a quandary – leafcutter ants cause a great deal of damage to crops, but applying pesticides to those crops harms the environment. Scientists have developed a possible solution, in the form of a high-tech material that uses an odor to trap ants.

Clean drinking water is a need that’s going unmet for many people. A new study has used a metal-organic framework (MOF) to filter pollutants out of seawater, generating large amounts of fresh water per day while using less energy than other methods.

Information can be encoded into many patterns, such as ones and zeroes for computers. A new proof of concept has been demonstrated to encode information into artificial molecules, which could enable programmable materials or new types of computers.

One area where metal organic frameworks have real potential is in the field of carbon capture, which a team of researchers has demonstrated with a sponge-like device that adsorbs CO2 using just a third of the energy required by other methods.