Dr. Aleksander Matavž (IJS): Exploiting ordered nanopore environment in metal organic frameworks for detection of volatile organic components

Detection of volatile organic compounds is essential in various applications, including monitoring air polluting levels, estimating food freshness, and diagnosing diseases via breath analysis. The main challenge of the existing technology is the poor selectivity of sensors since they usually cannot distinguish between the target and the interfering molecule. A viable alternative are sensors based on nanoporous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) since MOF pores have a well-defined chemical environment. Moreover, MOFs exhibit record high internal surface area that is available for specific adsorption of target molecules.
In the colloquium, I will present the integration of MOFs into thin-film capacitors and their response to various volatile compounds. We will look at very strong molecular sieving effect in MOFs due to ordered nanoporosity, and how it can be exploited to make an electronic nose using a single sensor element.
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