ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

CHEMISTRY DIVISION SEMINAR

      

           

SPEAKER:          Christopher L. Cahill

                                      George Washington University

                                      Washington, DC

 

TITLE:                Synthesis, Structural Chemistry and Luminescence of

f-Metal Containing Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Materials

 

          DATE:                 Thursday morning

                                      September 13, 2007

 

          TIME:                  10:30 am

 

          PLACE:               Bldg. 200, Room J183

 

          HOST:                 Richard Wilson

 

Abstract:  The designed synthesis of inorganic/inorganic hybrid materials has been of considerable interest of late, owing largely to their potential in areas such as catalysis, gas storage/separation, non-linear optical materials and sensing.  One class of the materials, the metal-organic frameworks (or MOFs) has been particularly attractive as their syntheses may be tuned to provide distinct topologies of interest.  Briefly, extended two- and three- dimensional materials are synthesized under hydrothermal conditions wherein metal centers are induced to self-assemble with a variety of organic linker molecules.  Choice of linker molecule and metal center in turn give rise to the overall topology. Most work in this area has involved transition metal systems yet our work moves to harness the unique properties of the lanthanide and actinide elements (e.g. high coordination numbers, fluorescent behavior etc) to produce novel materials with distinct properties.  Presented will be an overview of our hydrothermal synthesis techniques (including in situ ligand syntheses), crystal structure systematics and results from several fluorescence studies to demonstrate the remarkable structural diversity and potential of these compounds.