Synthesis of 2D Porous Crystalline Materials in Simulated Microgravity
To date, crystallization studies conducted in space laboratories, which are prohibitively costly and unsuitable to most research laboratories, have shown the valuable effects of microgravity during crystal growth and morphogenesis. Herein, an easy and highly efficient method is shown to achieve space-like experimentation conditions on Earth employing custom-made microfluidic devices to fabricate 2D porous crystalline molecular frameworks. It is confirmed that experimentation under these simulated microgravity conditions has unprecedented effects on the orientation, compactness and crack-free generation of 2D porous crystalline molecular frameworks as well as in their integration and crystal morphogenesis. It is believed that this work will provide a new "playground" to chemists, physicists, and materials scientists that desire to process unprecedented 2D functional materials and devices. ; N.C.-P., D.R.-S.-M., C.F. contributed equally to this work. This work was supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant microCrysFact (ERC-2015-STG No. 677020), the Horizon 2020 FETOPEN project SPRINT (No. 801464), the Swiss National Science Foundation (project no. 200021_181988), grant MAT 2015-70615-R from the Spanish Government funds and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The ICN2 is funded by the CERCA programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. The ICN2 is supported by the Severo Ochoa Centres of Excellence programme, funded by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI, grant no. SEV-2017-0706). N.C.-P. acknowledges support from "laCaixa" Foundation (fellowship ID 100010434). The fellowship code is LCF/BQ/ES17/11600012. N.C.-P. also acknowledges the financial support of COST action MP1407. R.P. acknowledges support from the Marie Curie Cofund, Beatriu de Pinós Fellowship AGAUR 2017 BP 00064. The GIWAXS experiments were conducted on the NCD-SWEET beamline of the ALBA synchrotron, Spain and on the SAXS/WAXS beamline of the Australian Synchrotron, ANSTO, Australia. GIWAXS experiments of Ni3(HITP)2 and COF-TAPB-BTCA were performed at the NCD-SWEET beamline at ALBA Synchrotron with the collaboration of ALBA staff. The authors acknowledge the support of the ANSTO, in providing the facilities for the GIWAXS experiments used for the characterization of COF-TAPB-BTCA in this work. ; Peer reviewed
