Metal-Organic Frameworks for Medicine, Energy and Water Treatment

EU4MOFs is a COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action focused on transforming lab-designed Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) into practical solutions for healthcare, sustainable energy, and clean water. On 6-7 June 2024, EU4MOFs held its first Hybrid Symposium and Workshop in Bilbao, Spain. This hybrid event brought together 70 on-site and 75 online attendees, who are leading experts from academia and industry from more than 20 countries.

The EU4MOFs Symposium, held on 6 June, began with a welcome from Action Chair Stefan Wuttke. He discussed the potential of MOFs to address cancer, energy, and wastewater issues and emphasized the importance of collaboration between academia and industry, with the COST Action team leading these efforts.

The MOF Symposium featured two keynote lectures—one talk on a common scientific language and MOFs standardization by Greta Heydenrych (IUPAC), and a second lecture on nanomedicine by Twan Lammers (RWTH Aachen). These talks were followed by three sessions on nano-, meso-, and macroscale MOFs, focusing on their applications in medicine, for energy applications, and for water treatment. Each session included compelling talks and a subsequent productive panel discussion.

Greta Heydenrych from IUPAC highlighted efforts to standardize MOFs and develop a common scientific language. She discussed the FAIR principles for data—findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable—and the challenges of making data machine-readable, as well as the need for standardized experimental descriptions, outreach, and funding. IUPAC provides great expertise with this and therefore she outlined what has been done in the MOF sphere by IUPAC until now. Building on this, there was an agreement that an initiative in form of an IUPAC-MOF task force should be formed to “organise the field of MOFs.“ This will facilitate the communication of chemistry and ultimately, make the chemistry language—and the field of MOFs—accessible for everyone in the world.

In the second keynote lecture, Twan Lammers from RWTH Aachen (Germany) addressed the challenges of MOFs in nanomedicine, focusing on improving drug delivery to tumours. He highlighted issues with current technologies, including low drug targeting efficiency and toxicity. Despite promising and intensive research, only few nanoparticle-based cancer drugs are available.

The first session with a focus on Nanoscale MOFs for Medicine, was started by Rosana Pinto who is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut des Matériaux Poreux de Paris (France). She highlighted the potential of MOFs for the therapeutic delivery of nitric oxide (NO) due to their superior adsorption capacity and fast biological actions. The second talk was given by Sigurd Øien-Ødegaard who is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Node Pharma AS (Norway). He presented on targeted therapy for liver cancer using Ra233, leveraging the homogeneous distribution of radiolabelled MOFs in the liver to inhibit tumour growth. The third presentation was given by Isabel Abandes Lazaro who is currently establishing her independent research group at the University of Valencia (Spain). She focused on engineering the surface of MOFs for drug delivery, showing how post-synthetic “click” chemistry can enhance nanoparticle properties for medicinal applications.

Subsequently, the three panellists discussed very relevant issues such as the biodegradation of MOFs in the body and corresponding toxicity studies of MOF and their breakdown products. As well as how engineering of surfaces of MOFs can be utilized to induce multiple drugs and surface functionalities, and how coating can create a more stable material.

Before the start of the second session, Richard Murray (WILEY) gave an introduction on how to publish with Wiley. He gave valuable insights into the ‘editors black box’ and helped to clarify many questions regarding the reviewing process, transparency and whether or not to publish raw data in the future.

Session 2: Mesoscale MOFs for Energy Applications. Chair: Jacopo Andreo (Spain); Speakers: Alexander Knebel (Germany), Thomas Bein (Germany), Aamod Desai (UK) – from left to right.

The second session on Mesoscale MOFs for Energy Applications was started by Thomas Bein from the University of Munich (Germany) who discussed covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and their energy applications, focusing on organic semiconductors for efficient ion and molecule flow, dynamic condensation chemistry, and light-harvesting in 2D networks. In the second talk of the session, Alexander Knebel, who is a Junior Research Group Leader at the Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena (Germany), covered liquid-processable MOFs for gas separation, notably ethylene, comparing supported MOF membranes with mixed matrix membranes and emphasizing diffusion selectivity. In the third talk, the postdoctoral researcher Aamod Desai from University of St. Andrews (United Kingdom) explored MOFs for charge storage in sodium-ion batteries, noting sodium‘s sustainability compared to lithium. He also highlighted mixed sodium carboxylates for higher capacity and stability, and the benefits of azo-functional groups for structural stability during redox changes.

In the following panel discussion, the main focus was on the sustainability of the starting materials from sustainable sources and not fossil fuels, and scalability of the resulting material.

The third session on Macroscale MOFs for Water Treatment was started by Evelyn Ploetz from at the University of Munich (Germany). She highlighted MOFs‘ role in addressing water scarcity by removing contaminants like oil, dyes, and heavy metals. She discussed MOF-801‘s effectiveness in adsorbing water from the atmosphere and the challenges in water retention and release. In the second talk, Roberto Fernandez de Luis from Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures (Spain) focused on macroscale MOFs and polymer composites for water harvesting and filtration. He covered MOFs‘ ability to reduce toxic contaminants, emphasized problems with rapid saturation leading to the release of contaminants, and highlighted the importance of nanoparticle dispersity in creating effective, permeable membranes.

Following the presentations, the panellists discussed issues with nanoplastics in membranes, the breakdown of polymer into PFAS and the potential breakdown of MOFs, as well as the use of MOF-based membranes for desalination.

In the closing ceremony of the first EU4MOFs Symposium Day, the COST Action Chair Stefan Wuttke received an Honorary Doctorate from the State Scientific Institution “Institute for Single Crystals” of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Awarding an Honorary Doctorate from the State Scientific Institution“ Institute for Single Crystals‘ of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Valentyn Chebanov (Ukraine), Stefan Wuttke (Spain), Olesia Kulyk (Ukraine) – from left to right.

The second day of the EU4MOFs Symposium on 7 June 2024 started with a keynote lecture given by Christian Serre from the Institut des Matériaux Poreux de Paris (France). He highlighted the scale-up process of MOFs as well as how he co-founded the startup ‘SQUAIR Tech’ which develops various porous materials for capturing air pollutants.

Subsequently, the first working group (WG1) of EU4MOFs organized a workshop focussing on MOF synthetic protocols and optimization. The WG1 leaders, Dariusz Matoga from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland) and Anna Sinelshchikova from Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures (Spain) presented their ideas and initiated a round robin study on the reproducibility of MOF synthesis. Based on this, the EU4MOFs Action hopes to publish general best-practices-guidelines for reliable MOF synthesis.

After that the second working group (WG2) of EU4MOFs organized a workshop focussing on MOF processing, manufacturing, and upscaling. The WG2 leaders, Thomas P. Burg from the Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany) and Andreas Kaiser from the Technical University of Denmark (Denmark) set the audience a series of questions which were then discussed in three breakout groups. After that the individual groups presented their conclusions and these were debated by everyone.

The active participation of many EU4MOFs members in these two workshops gave excellent opportunities for networking, sharing common thoughts and thereby, it produced a huge step forward in aligning the ideas and goals on MOF chemistry within Europe.

The Symposium rounded off by a keynote lecture given by Erlantz Lizundia from Basque Center for Materials, Applications and Nanostructures (Spain). His work is focused on Environmental impact assessment, ways of recycling plastic and life cycle assessment. This lecture laid the foundation for a fruitful panel discussion. Herein, the importance of the evaluation of the footprint of MOF synthesis was highlighted, as it can be very different from expected – and has until now generally been understudied in MOFs.

The EU4MOFs Symposium underscored the transformative potential of MOFs in addressing important global issues. The event facilitated meaningful discussions and collaborations, paving the way for future innovations in MOF research and applications. The insights and developments presented at the symposium will undoubtedly contribute to a more sustainable and efficient future. The EU4MOFs COST Action is still growing (Action start date 2 Nov 2023, end date 1 Nov 2027) and constantly looking for more curious scientists to join.

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