Surface Chemical Functionalization of Sol-Gel Materials and Ceramics for MOF Technology

Surface Chemical Functionalization of Sol-Gel Materials and Ceramics for MOF Technology 

In the past few years, much work has been done combining commercial ceramics with MOFs to improve the mechanical properties, provide a substrate to anchor the MOFs, or as guest systems for the ultraporous crystals. However, sol-gel approach offers an effective way for surfece material functionalization. Owing to the wide range of surface chemistry and morphologies that sol-gel-based materials can afford, sol-gel substrate serves as an excellent candidate for growth of MOFs. 

The employment of ceramic films as a surface has proven to be an effective approach for inducing preferential growth of MOFs on a support rather than in solution. MOF-5 crystals have been shown to preferentially grown on COOH-ter-minated surfaces [71]. Bifunctional silanes such as 10-undecenyltrichlorosilane or 

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