Hole-ly materials: Sustainable solutions in the empty spaces of Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs)

As a former supramolecular chemist, I was delighted to see that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for the development of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) – and even more thrilled that Professor Richard Robson, who co-supervised my Honours project, was one of the three laureates. Professor Robson, together with Susumu Kitagawa and Omar M. Yaghi, was recognised for pioneering a new class of porous materials that has reshaped our understanding of solid-state chemistry.

As their name suggests, metal-organic frameworks are crystalline materials made of metal ions or clusters connected via organic linker molecules to form three-dimensional frameworks. Both the metal ion and the organic linker building blocks can be varied, resulting in a huge range of possible structures with properties that are tuneable “on demand”.

Since their discovery in the 1980s, MOFs have attracted intense research attention, largely owing to their ultrahigh porosity. They possess the largest internal surface area of any known material, in some cases exceeding 6000 square metres per gram – almost the size of a football field. Such levels of porosity were once thought impossible in crystalline solids, which traditionally rely on tightly packed molecular arrangements to achieve stability. 

The large cavities present in MOFs make them promising candidates for a diverse range of sustainable technologies. MOFs possessing high surface areas and open metal sites have been designed for use in carbon dioxide capture and sequestration. Hydrogen storage is another promising application, where MOFs have demonstrated significant uptake of H2 gas under mild conditions. In environmental applications, MOFs can remove pollutants from wastewater, with tailored pore chemistries enabling selective uptake of contaminants. In addition, many MOFs have been employed as heterogeneous catalysts, owing to their accessible active sites and tuneable internal structures.

The surge of interest in MOFs has resulted in an expanding ecosystem of start ups working to translate academic breakthroughs into scalable solutions. A particularly compelling example is the Cambridge-based start-up Immaterial, founded in 2015 by Professor David Fairen-Jimenez.

Immaterial has tackled one of the core limitations of MOFs: the fact that they are typically produced as fine crystalline powders, which are difficult to pack, transport, or incorporate into industrial reactors. Conventional methods for pelletising MOF powders require the use of binders and high-pressure processes, which causes a sharp drop in porosity.

Immaterial has developed a platform for producing monolithic MOFs, which are dense, macroscopic crystals that preserve the high porosity of powders while offering enhanced mechanical stability, improved performance in adsorption and separation, as well as greater ease of handling and integration into commercial systems. Using this patented technology, the company is engineering custom MOFs tailored to specific industrial requirements, from gas capture modules to next generation storage media.

The company combines its wet-lab production capabilities with computational modelling to facilitate the digital discovery and design of MOFs that meet specific customer requirements.

Immaterial’s trajectory has been impressive. It has recently secured significant venture funding – reported at approximately £13.5M – and is now looking to scale-up production and begin supplying materials directly to partner sites.
 
Thanks to companies like Immaterial, the once academic field of MOF chemistry is entering a phase of real-world deployment, with engineered MOFs poised to play an increasingly central role in carbon capture, green gas storage, and next generation separation processes. The rapid evolution of MOF chemistry, from its conceptual origins in the 1980s to today’s industrial scale breakthroughs, highlights how fundamental research can shape the technologies that drive a more sustainable future.