(263e) Particle Size Analysis of the Sonochemically Synthesized HKUST-1: Towards Scale-up to High Throughput Synthesis of Metal Organic Frameworks

Metal organic framework (MOF) crystals have shown promise in many different applications such as separations, adsorption, and catalysis due in part to their highly tuneable functional groups. The initial particle size of crystals plays a vital role in overall performance for these applications, for example, emphasis on seed crystal size in gas separations has been is highly studied for growing membranes, and in catalysis many reactions are shown to occur at the crystal surface since diffusion into the pores is a rate-limiting step. High throughput methods to produce small MOF crystals of nearly uniform size are a necessary step for any of these processes to become commercially feasible. Sonochemical synthesis is a potential technique that may meet each of these demands due to the relatively small particle sizes, relatively high crystallinity, reaction speed. Thus, a study has been performed to investigate the effects that amplitude, solvent concentrations, time, and sonicator tip size have on the particle size of the metal organic framework HKUST-1 during sonochemical synthesis.