DEFNET-641887
MSCA-ITN-2014-ETN
Horizon 2020
Stefano Dissegna, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany
Synthesis and characterization of mixed-valence defect engineered
analogs of canonical MOFs
How many of you know the reason why the chemist Fritz Haber is one of
the most important man in human history?
Before telling you the answer you need to know that the food production
for half the world's current population depends on nitrogen fertilizers
such as ammonia nitrate (an ammonia product).
The production of ammonia (NH3), before Fritz Haber´s invention (Haber
–Bosch process noble prize in chemistry 1918), was difficult to realize on
an industrial scale. This resulted in a low production of fertilizer and thus
a low amount of food for an increasing world population.
The most important thing in the Haber-Bosch process is the
heterogeneous catalyst based on iron (Fe) that allow an easy and cheap
synthesis of ammonia from abundant gases such as nitrogen (N2) and
hydrogen (H2).
The DEFective NETwork project (DEFNET), is focused in the synthesis and in depth characterization of a
new class of heterogeneous catalysts named MOFs (metal organic frameworks). These crystalline porous
materials are made by metal atoms and organic molecules and have a well-defined 3D structure (see
Figure 1).
Figure 1: Schematic representation of the MOFs structures.
Like other crystalline materials MOFs have structural defects but in this materials they can be tuned in
various ways depending on the type of MOF. The presence of defects has been demonstrated to have a
dramatic effect (improvement) on the MOFs catalytic properties.
For this reason, the main goal of my research project is to achieve control over the materials’ defect
structures by using different synthetic pathways. Then, the synthesized sample are going to be tested for
many different catalytic reactions such as hydrogenation of olefins, esterification of free fatty acid and
other reaction that are very important in the industrial scale.
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