Changed [Seminar] "Porous soft matter based on metal-organic cages" by Associate Prof. Shuhei Furukawa (PI), Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (WPI-iCeMS), Kyoto University

Abstract: Designed porosity in coordination materials often relies on highly ordered crystalline networks, which provide stability upon solvent removal. However, the requirement for crystallinity often impedes control of higher degrees of morphological versatility, or materials processing. Herein, we describe a supramolecular approach to the synthesis of amorphous polymer materials with controlled microporosity. The strategy entails the use of robust metal-organic cages/polyhedra (MOCs/MOPs) as porous monomers in the supramolecular polymerization reaction. By controlling the self-assembly pathways, we successfully tuned the resulting macroscopic form of the polymers, from spherical colloidal particles to colloidal gels with hierarchical porosity. The resulting materials display distinct microporous properties arising from the internal cavity of the MOPs. This synthetic approach could lead to the fabrication of soft, flexible materials with permanent porosity.    

Biography: Shuhei Furukawa is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at iCeMS, Kyoto University. He received his PhD degree in 2005 from Kyoto University. After a postdoctoral research at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in the group of Steven De Feyter and Frans De Schryver, he returned to Kyoto University in 2007 as an assistant professor. In 2008, he moved to the JST ERATO Kitagawa Integrated Pores Project as a group leader and since 2010 he has been an associate professor in iCeMS, Kyoto University. His main research interest is in coordination chemistry and particularly synthesis and property of coordination materials at the multiple length scales and their applications in cell biology and environment and energy related issues.