Metal organic frameworks are crystalline materials built from metal ions or clusters connected by organic linkers into highly ordered, porous networks. Their most striking feature is extremely high surface area, often exceeding that of traditional porous materials like zeolites and activated carbon. The pore size and chemistry can be tuned by choosing different metals and organic linkers, or by modifying the framework after synthesis.

Research focuses strongly on gas storage and separation. Certain frameworks can store large amounts of hydrogen and methane at moderate pressures, making them candidates for cleaner fuel storage. Others are tailored to selectively capture carbon dioxide from flue gas or even directly from air, using functional groups that interact more strongly with CO2 than with nitrogen or oxygen. This tunability allows fine control over adsorption capacity, selectivity and operating conditions.

Another major area is catalysis. The regular pores and exposed metal sites can behave like a scaffold for catalytic reactions, including CO2 conversion into useful chemicals, organic transformations, and photocatalytic water splitting. Researchers also explore frameworks for water purification, where the pores capture contaminants, and for sensing, where adsorption of specific molecules changes electrical or optical properties.

Challenges include stability in water and under real conditions, scalability of synthesis, and cost. New generations of frameworks aim for improved robustness, processability into membranes or composites, and integration into devices and industrial systems. Overall, research on metal organic frameworks seeks to exploit their modular design, vast internal surface and tunable functionality to address energy, environmental and chemical manufacturing problems.