Recently, Prof. Caro from the University of Hannover and Prof. Volkmer from the University of Augsburg published in Science about the deformation of metal-organic frameworks in the influence of an external electric field. They formed membrane layer of the MOF ZIF-8 and found that it was converted into a polar polymorph with a stiffer lattice in response to an applied E-field. This change reduced gas transport through the membrane but for certain gas mixtures such as propane and propene, also improved their separation factor.
see Sciene, 358 (2017) 347-351
We congratulate the teams for their great work!