Cu₃(hexaiminotriphenylene)₂: an electrically conductive 2D metal-organic framework for chemiresistive sensing

Michael G Campbell; Dennis Sheberla; Sophie F Liu; Timothy M Swager; Mircea Dincă

doi:10.1002/anie.201411854

Cu₃(hexaiminotriphenylene)₂: an electrically conductive 2D metal-organic framework for chemiresistive sensing

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015 Mar 27;54(14):4349-52. doi: 10.1002/anie.201411854. Epub 2015 Feb 9.

Authors

Michael G Campbell¹, Dennis Sheberla, Sophie F Liu, Timothy M Swager, Mircea Dincă

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 (USA) http://web.mit.edu/dincalab.

PMID: 25678397
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201411854

Abstract

The utility of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as functional materials in electronic devices has been limited to date by a lack of MOFs that display high electrical conductivity. Here, we report the synthesis of a new electrically conductive 2D MOF, Cu3(HITP)2 (HITP=2,3,6,7,10,11-hexaiminotriphenylene), which displays a bulk conductivity of 0.2 S cm(-1) (pellet, two-point-probe). Devices synthesized by simple drop casting of Cu3(HITP)2 dispersions function as reversible chemiresistive sensors, capable of detecting sub-ppm levels of ammonia vapor. Comparison with the isostructural 2D MOF Ni3(HITP)2 shows that the copper sites are critical for ammonia sensing, indicating that rational design/synthesis can be used to tune the functional properties of conductive MOFs.

Keywords: ammonia; conductivity; copper; metal-organic frameworks; sensors.