Abstract
Materials with pores of controlled size and connectivity are of fundamental importance in chemical industry and research. The pores in microporous materials, which have the same dimensions as individual molecules, can be used for the immobilisation of active sites to develop these materials into catalysts. Zeolites and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are two such widely studied materials in this aspect.
The main objective of my work has been to synthesize MOFs with specific catalytically active sites. As basis of the study, the Zr-biphenyl MOF UiO-67 was chosen, due to its high stability and demonstrated abilities to harbor a wide range of catalytic sites. UiO MOFs (Universitetet i Oslo) were discovered at the Department of Chemistry in 2008 and is now prominent in the MOF literature but its synthesis and fundamental properties has been poorly understood. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a deep understanding to control the properties of the materials by atomic scale manipulation. In this thesis a thorough study is done to refine, understand the synthesis and its effects for a stable, reproducible and reliable development of a desired material. Furthermore, the optimized protocols were implemented to develop UiO-67 type catalysts by anchoring different metals in the pores to serve as active sites. This work has helped to have a better understanding of MOF catalysts for important reactions such as CO2 hydrogenation and ethene oligomerization.