{"id":2118,"date":"2014-10-29T16:54:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T16:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=2118"},"modified":"2016-08-14T23:48:46","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T23:48:46","slug":"to-make-gas-absorbing-sponges-start-with-a-whole-lotta-holes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/to-make-gas-absorbing-sponges-start-with-a-whole-lotta-holes\/","title":{"rendered":"To make gas-absorbing ‘sponges’, start with a whole lotta holes"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Matthew Hill<\/a>, CSIRO<\/em><\/p>\n

The Prime Minister\u2019s Prizes for Science \u2013\u00a0awarded at Parliament House in Canberra tonight \u2013 recognise excellence in science and science teaching. This year, we asked four prizewinners to reflect on their work and factors that influenced their careers. The Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year, Dr Matthew Hill<\/a> from CSIRO, takes us through his work in metal organic frameworks.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Looking back, a career in science was always on the cards. When I was about four, for behaving myself I wanted to be allowed to add lots of numbers up. Growing up in Western Sydney, we didn\u2019t have much, and a long university degree didn\u2019t really match the budget.<\/p>\n

What made the difference was my mother deciding that my sister and I were going to university no matter what, even though no one in our family had gone before.<\/p>\n

As I headed to university, I thought I\u2019d be a mathematician, but it turned out I just wasn\u2019t quite good enough. I also really enjoyed chemistry, so I got into a labcoat.<\/p>\n

My PhD at UNSW with Rob Lamb<\/a> got me fired up about linking fundamental chemistry to an applied problem \u2013 what I was working on could one day be useful outside the lab.<\/p>\n

When I joined CSIRO, Anita Hill<\/a> had a great thing going with porous materials \u2013 we were interested in anything with lots of holes in it. It made sense to work with what had the most holes \u2013 that was the best way to break new ground.<\/p>\n

Metal organic frameworks, or MOFs, are metal atoms joined to each other by organic linkers. When the chemistry is right, they form a structure that looks like a building scaffold. From the outside, they look like a sugar or salt crystal, but inside, every atom in the structure is exposed to empty space, meaning that up to 80% of the crystal is empty \u2013 made up of nothing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

The remarkable structure of metal organic frameworks (MOFs).<\/span><\/p>\n

All of those atoms inside the structure exposed to empty space make for a huge amount of surface. Many MOFs have over 5,000 square metres of surface area per gram \u2013 like having a soccer field inside a teaspoon worth of powder.<\/p>\n

First off I was inspired by chemists such as Richard Robson<\/a> and Jeff Long<\/a> who had shown you could use all this surface like a sponge.<\/p>\n

For example, it is possible to soak up natural gas into a MOF. If you put this powder into a tank, it turns out you can store many times more gas in the same place as if you compressed it \u2013 the sponge effect is that strong. So, a car powered by natural gas, which could be cheaper and cleaner, could carry enough gas to drive as far as a petrol one.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Some of the brilliant young researchers at CSIRO.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My team and I designed MOFs to store huge amounts of hydrogen<\/a> and natural gas<\/a> fuel, and to capture carbon dioxide<\/a> in massive quantities as well.<\/p>\n

We even made a MOF sponge that could wring itself out<\/a> when exposed to the sun. Most of the energy used for capturing carbon dioxide goes to regenerating your capture material, so using sunlight is an attractive alternative.<\/p>\n

Gas storage in a MOF.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other thing about MOFs is that the holes are all the same size. Like a flour sieve, the holes can separate big from small. I was interested but didn\u2019t know much about this, so I was lucky that Rich Noble<\/a> at University of Colorado Boulder let me visit for a while to learn.<\/p>\n

We thought that adding these MOF powders to polymer membranes \u2013 thin plastic sheets \u2013 would help one gas to pass through faster than another. It\u2019s the best way to get natural gas, oxygen or water ready for us to use.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Anti-ageing MOF membranes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure enough, we saw an improvement, but we also stumbled upon an even more exciting effect. These plastic sheets don\u2019t last very long, collapsing down on themselves \u2013 they age. After a few weeks the gases don\u2019t go through very fast any more.<\/p>\n

We found that one specific MOF seemed to form a special mixture, propping the sheets open, making them last for years instead of weeks<\/a>. Today we are developing these anti-ageing membranes for a platform of applications, from defence to agriculture and energy.<\/p>\n

When I first started, making a teaspoon of a MOF was a major undertaking. We knew that they would never be useful unless large amounts could be made efficiently.<\/p>\n

With Tash Polyzos<\/a> we took reaction times from 72 hours to 1.2 minutes<\/a> using continuous flow chemistry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Flow chemistry delivers MOFs in minutes.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is the future of chemical synthesis because reactions happen faster and cleaner, and it was a game changer for MOFs.<\/p>\n

Now we can make MOFs for a myriad of uses, but also have enough of them to make it worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\n

Further reading:
\nThe genetics of epilepsy: bringing hope to families<\/a>
\nEpigenetic code cracker: why skin cells are skin cells and not neurons<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Matthew Hill receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF). <\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Matthew Hill, CSIRO The Prime Minister\u2019s Prizes for Science \u2013\u00a0awarded at Parliament House in Canberra tonight \u2013 recognise excellence in science and science teaching. This year, we asked four prizewinners to reflect on their work and factors that influenced their careers. The Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year, Dr Matthew Hill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":6228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6229,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions\/6229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}