Abstract:

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) owing to their high surface area, tunable pore size and surface properties are highly versatile materials with applications ranging from sorption, filtration, storage, and catalysis. Metal nodes are the inorganic component of MOFs that mimic binary metal compounds such as oxides and might show similar activity. Catalytic activity of MOFs can be modulated by the metal-exchange reactions at the nodes in order to get catalyst with highly uniform and well-defined active sites.

In this work, effect of the addition of a bivalent metal (Co, Ni, Mn and Zn) on the catalytic activity of an iron-based MOF with a MIL-88B structure has been investigated. A two-step synthetic strategy was adopted in which a bimetallic oxo-cluster (secondary building unit) was prepared in the first step. A ligand substitution reaction in the second step led to the formation of bimetallic MOFs. The synthesized materials were characterized through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), and Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The XRD patterns confirmed the successful synthesis of these materials and SEM images showed its rod-like morphology. Oxidation of benzyl alcohol was performed as a model test reaction to check the catalytic activity of the bimetallic MOFs. The future plan is to use these MOFs for valorization of lignin to make useful organic products such as aldehyde, phenol and acetophenone etc.

Thesis Committee

• Dr. Muhammad Zaheer (supervisor)
• Dr. Irshad Hussain (thesis committee member/evaluator)
• Dr. Salman Nosheer Arshad (thesis committee member/evaluator)