Expanding the Design Space of Polymer-Metal Organic Framework (MOF) Gels by Understanding Polymer-MOF Interactions

Prince Verma; Mark S Bannon; Mara K Kuenen; Sanoj Raj; Ankit Dhakal; Kevin Stone; Asa W Nichols; Charles W Machan; Yamil J Colón; Rachel A Letteri; Gaurav Giri

doi:10.1021/acs.chemmater.4c00112

Expanding the Design Space of Polymer-Metal Organic Framework (MOF) Gels by Understanding Polymer-MOF Interactions

Chem Mater. 2024 Jul 25;36(19):9356-9369. doi: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.4c00112. eCollection 2024 Oct 8.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903, United States.
² Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame ,Indiana46556, United States.
³ Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, United States.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, United States.

Abstract

The fabrication of polymer-MOF composite gels holds great potential to provide emergent properties for drug delivery, environmental remediation, and catalysis. To leverage the full potential of these composites, we investigated how the presence and chemistry of polymers impact MOF formation within the composites and, in turn, how MOFs impact polymer gelation. We show that polymers with a high density of strongly metal-binding carboxylic acids inhibit MOF formation; however, reducing the density of carboxylic acids or substituting them with weaker metal-binding hydroxyl groups permits both MOF formation and gelation within composites. Preparing composites with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), which does not bind MOF zirconium (Zr)-oxo clusters, and observing gelation suggests that MOFs can entrap polymer chains to create cross-links in addition to cross-linking them through polymer-Zr-oxo interactions. Both simulations and experiments show composite hydrogels formed with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) to be more stable than those made with PEG, which can reptate through MOF pores upon heating. We demonstrate the generalizability of this composite formation process across different Zr-based MOFs (UiO-66, NU-901, UiO-67, and MOF-525) and by spin-coating gels into conformable films. PVA-UiO-66 composite hydrogels demonstrated high sorption and sustained release of methylene blue relative to the polymer alone (3× loading, 28× slower release), and PVA-MOF-525 composite hydrogels capably sorb the therapeutic peptide Angiotensin 1-7. By understanding the influence of polymer-MOF interactions on the structure and properties of composite gels, this work informs and expands the design space of this emerging class of materials.