Randall Q. Snurr, professor for Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Northwestern University (USA), will give the Pretty Porous Science Lecture #78 on the topic "Metal-Organic Frameworks as Tunable Platforms for Gas Storage and Chemical Separations".
Date: 30 June 2026
Time: 2 pm
Title: "Metal-Organic Frameworks as Tunable Platforms for Gas Storage and Chemical Separations"
Speaker: Prof. Randall Q. Snurr, Northwestern University (USA)
Location: PWR 06H - V 6.02, University of Stuttgart
Abstract
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a versatile class of nanoporous materials synthesized in a “building-block” approach from inorganic nodes and organic linkers. By selecting appropriate building blocks, the structural and chemical properties of the resulting materials can be finely tuned, and this makes MOFs promising materials for applications such as gas storage, chemical separations, sensing, drug delivery, and catalysis. This talk will focus on efforts to design or screen MOFs for storage of gaseous fuels, such as hydrogen and natural gas, and for separating mixtures of small molecules, including CO2 capture. Because of the predictability of MOF synthetic routes and the nearly infinite number of possible structures, molecular modeling is an attractive tool for screening new MOFs before they are synthesized. Modeling can also provide insight into the molecular-level details that lead to observed macroscopic properties. This talk will illustrate how a combination of molecular modeling, machine learning, and experiments can be used to discover, develop, and ultimately design new MOFs for desired separation and storage applications.
About Randy Snurr
Randy Snurr is the John G. Searle Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. He holds BSE and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively, and performed post-doctoral research at the University of Leipzig in Germany supported by a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Other honors include a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, the Leibniz professorship at the University of Leipzig, and the Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He was elected a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in 2019 and named a Highly Cited Researcher from 2014 to 2023 by Thomson Reuters. He served as a Senior Editor for the Journal of Physical Chemistry and is currently on the advisory boards of Adsorption, Adsorption Science & Technology, and Molecular Systems Design & Engineering. His research interests include development of new nanoporous materials for energy and environmental applications, molecular simulation, adsorption separations, diffusion in nanoporous materials, and catalysis.