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Jason Harper, an electrical engineer in Argonne National Laboratory's EV-Smart Grid Interoperability Center, discusses his SpEC Module invention that will enable fast charging of electric vehicles in under 15 minutes. The module has been licensed to BTCPower.
The goal of this Exploratory Express project was to expand the understanding of the physical properties of our recently discovered class of materials consisting of metal-organic frameworks with electroactive ‘guest’ molecules that together form an electrically conducting charge-transfer complex (molecule@MOF). Thin films of Cu 3 (BTC) 2 were grown on fused silica using solution step-by-step growth and were infiltrated with the molecule tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ). The infiltrated MOF films were extensively characterized using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, electrical conductivity, and thermoelectric properties. Thermopower measurements on TCNQ@Cu 3 (BTC) 2 revealed a positive Seebeck coefficient of ~400 μV/k, indicating that holes are the primary carriers in this material. The high value of the Seebeck coefficient and the expected low thermal conductivity suggest that molecule@MOF materials may be attractive for thermoelectric power conversion applications requiring low cost, solution-processable, and non-toxic active materials.
Catalyst confinement within microporous media provides the opportunity to site isolate reactive intermediates, enforce intermolecular functionalization chemistry by co-localizing reactive intermediates and substrates in molecular-scale interstices, and harness non-covalent host–guest interactions to achieve selectivities that are complementary to those accessible in solution. As part of an ongoing program to develop synthetically useful nitrogen-atom transfer (NAT) catalysts, we have demonstrated intermolecular benzylic amination of toluene at a Ru 2 nitride intermediate confined within the interstices of a Ru2-based metal–organic framework (MOF), Ru 3 (btc) 2 X 3 (btc = 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate, i.e., Ru-HKUST-1 for X = Cl). Nitride confinement within the extended MOF lattice enabled intermolecular C–H functionalization of benzylic C–H bonds in preference to nitride dimerization, which was encountered with soluble molecular analogues. Detailed study of the kinetic isotope effects (KIEs, i.e., k H /k D ) of C–H amination, assayed both as intramolecular effects using partially labeled toluene and as intermolecular effects using a mixture of per-labeled and unlabeled toluene, provided evidence for restricted substrate mobility on the time scale of interstitial NAT. Analysis of these KIEs as a function of material mesoporosity provided approximate experimental values for functionalization in the absence of mass transport barriers. Here, we disclose a combined experimental and computational investigation of the mechanism of NAT from a Ru 2 nitride to the C–H bond of toluene. Computed kinetic isotope effects for a H-atom abstraction (HAA)/radical rebound (RR) mechanism are in good agreement with experimental data obtained for C–H amination at the rapid diffusion limit. These results provide the first detailed analysis of the mechanism of intermolecular NAT to a C–H bond, bolster the use of KIEs as a probe of confinement effects on NAT within MOF lattices, and provide mechanistic insights unavailable by experiment because rate-determining mass transport obscured the underlying chemical kinetics.