Chemistry Colloquium: Bioinspired Reactivity in Metal-Organic Frameworks

Professor Casey Wade will be the guest speaker for the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry Colloquium presenting on Bioinspired Reactivity in Metal-Organic Frameworks. Dr. Wade is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Ohio State University.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) share some common features with metalloenzymes including reactive site isolation, well-defined secondary structures, and the ability to support entatic states poised for reaction with a substrate. This seminar will describe our investigations into the design of bioinspired MOFs for trace CO ₂ capture and heterogeneous catalysis. Postsynthetic modification reactions have been used to generate transition metal hydroxide groups at the inorganic building units of benzotriazolate-based MOFs. The resulting materials adsorb large amounts of CO ₂ via a M–OH + CO ₂ ⇌ M–OCO ₂ H chemisorption process reminiscent of CO ₂ fixation by α-carbonic anhydrases. In addition, our recent efforts to immobilize well-defined transition metal catalysts in MOFs will be discussed . These materials show significant differences in catalytic activity and selectivity compared to homogeneous analogues.