Transforming an insulating metal–organic framework into electrically conducting metal–organic framework⊃conducting polymer composites

Owing to their diverse potentials help advance modern electronics and energy technologies, electrically conducting metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as one of the most coveted functional materials within past decade. The key developing MOFs is equip them with mobile charge carriers facilitate long-range movement. Circumventing challenges unpredictability associated construction intrinsically MOFs, herein, we converted a structurally robust porous but insulating Zn-dpzNDI MOF based on an electron deficient dipyrazolate-naphthalenediimide (dpzNDI) ligand into MOF⊃conducting-polymer (MOF⊃CP) composites via oxidative polymerization preloaded redox-active 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) pyrrole (Py) monomers corresponding PEDOT PPy polymers, which are well-known hole-transporters. After monomer loading in-situ polymerization, resulting MOF⊃CP remained crystalline became less porous, suggesting that amorphous CP chains were mostly confined cavities. presence CPs was confirmed by infra-red (IR), diffuse-reflectance UV–Vis–NIR STEM-EDX analyses. Whereas pristine had immeasurably low conductivity (σ < 10−12 S/m), MOF⊃PEDOT MOF⊃PPy displayed significantly higher electrical conductivity: 1.8 × 10−5 2.5 10−3 S/m, respectively. Thus, transformed electron-rich monomers, versatile strategy could be adopted engineer this much elusive electronic property practically in any MOFs.