Finding the correlation between electrical conductivity and dimension of metal–organic frameworks

Abstract

Electrically conducting metal–organic frameworks (ecMOFs) have become a major focus of research in both chemical and materials science owing to their typical designing principle for versatile applications. To date, a large number of ecMOFs with diverse structures and topologies have been studied. Electron conduction in MOFs occurs either through the metal–ligand architecture (intrinsically conducting MOFs) or through the guest (extrinsically conducting MOFs). For the intrinsically conducting MOFs, their dimensionality plays a significant role in determining their electrical conductivity, as it influences the pathways available for charge transport. Significant attention has been paid to electrically conducting 2D coordination polymers (2D CPs) owing to their higher charge transport property, easy delamination, fabrication on conducting surface and potential applications. 3D MOFs provide a major platform to study the guest-dependent charge transport property, while 1D coordination polymers (1D CPs) are less explored. However, there is no review that highlights the correlation between the charge transport phenomena and dimension of ecMOFs. Hence, in this study, we attempted to gain a proper insight into this fact.