Hassan Azzan

Coordination polymers, metal–organic frameworks and the need for terminology guidelines Coordination polymers (CPs) and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are among the most prolific research areas of inorganic chemistry and crystal engineering in the last 15 years, and yet it still seems t...

🧪 "MOFs" or "Coordination Polymers"? Interested in the terminology behind this year's Chemistry #NobelPrize? Read this paper by Lars Öhrström, with coworkers including winner Susumu Kitagawa. Cited in the Scientific Background to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025: doi.org/10.1039/C2CE...

More than 30% of this century’s science Nobel prizewinners immigrated: see their journeys The most common destination for eventual Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine since 2000 is the United States, Nature has found.

Of the 202 Nobel laureates who have been awarded prizes in physics, chemistry and medicine this century, less than 70% hail from the country in which they were awarded their prize.

go.nature.com/4ocbFu6

My first MOF paper was the basis for a lot of my later work on adsorption in flexible structures. All the math was derived in 2 hours of Eurostar travel, and I'm still amazed it works so well! #mofs #chemsky #chemistrynobel pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

We interrupt our regular programming to announce…

The Open DAC 2025 Dataset for Sorbent Discovery in Direct Air Capture https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03162

Evaluation of Hydrophobic, Hydrophilic, and Water Adsorption Properties of Microporous Metal–Organic Framework Materials by Unified Isotherm Analysis http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c00853

Harnessing nanoscale densification for controlling gas selectivity in flexible zeolitic imidazolate frameworks https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(25)00404-7?rss=yes

Unlocking the scale-up of the benchmark MOFs MIL-53(Al)’s https://dx.doi.org/10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-1n62k?rft_dat=source%3Ddrss

Tuning flexibility in Metal-Organic Frameworks via linker per-fluorination: revisiting the adsorption-induced breathing of MIL-53(Al) http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2025/TA/D5TA04373E

Evaluating the Performance of a Microporous Ti Bisphosphonate MOF for Postcombustion Carbon Capture by Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.5c00734

Near-cryogenic direct air capture using adsorbents Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2 is a key component in the portfolio of negative emissions technologies for mitigating global warming. However, even with the most potent amine sorbents, large-scale DAC...

This approach cuts DAC energy demand to as low as 1.7-3.3 GJ/tCO₂ and slashes the levelized cost of capture by ~60%, opening a scalable, low-cost path for gigaton-scale carbon removal. Read more: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

Fundamental of CO2 Adsorption and Diffusion in Sub-nanoporous Materials: Application to CALF-20 https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07791

Understanding Pore Filling Processes and Adsorption/Desorption Hysteresis in Nanoporous Metal–Organic Frameworks: Insights from Grand Canonical Monte Carlo Simulations and Free Energy Calculations http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c01042

I will be there – Look forward to catching up!

An explicit dual-site BET isotherm model for the prediction of nonideal competitive and cooperative adsorption equilibrium A dual-site extension is proposed to the previously derived ideal adsorbed solution theory analytical solution for two coadsorbing single-site BET isotherms. The proposed dual-site BET (DSBET) isother...

Do you have a CO2 isotherm fitted to a single- or dual-site Langmuir isotherm and a H2O isotherm fitted to a BET or GAB isotherm? Then you may find the coadsorption model from our newest preprint useful! We explored the use of BET extended isotherm models for CCS separations: doi.org/10.26434/che...

Very useful and comprehensive paper as always, Nick – Congrats! 🙌

Excellent work and a very interesting material – congrats!

High-capacity water sorbent cycles without hysteresis under dry conditions - Nature Communications There is a lack of water sorbents capable of cycling water vapor under dry conditions without hysteresis or decomposition. Here, the authors demonstrate that the anionic MOF SU-102 exhibits high-capac...

Thrilled to share the last work from my PhD! We examined the pore cation effect on water sorption, finding hydrophilicity trends with a Hofmeister series (the cations are changing the "solubility of water in the MOF"). Mg-SU-102 is great at pulling water from dry air!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My review “Recent advances in stimuli-responsive framework materials: Understanding their response and searching for materials with targeted behavior” is out in Coord. Chem. Rev. and it's open access: doi.org/10.1016/j.cc... #chemsky #MOF #MOF_papers

Thanks @darrenbroom.bsky.social ! Always a pleasure to present at BZA!

Indeed! First came across these while preparing a slideshow to a general audience! Many fun ways to begin a talk 🙌

Very cool! My new favorite bit of adsorption trivia is this intro in “J. Rouquerol et al., Characterizarion of Porous Solids Ill” – Fascinating to think about everything that went undocumented between ~ BCE and formal experimentation

Abstracts open for the 2nd conference on Engineering Porous Materials at Multiple Scales, 17-18 Sept 2025, in Bath.

Covering a broad range of topics that reflect the different scales of study, use, and porosity in porous materials research.

store.bath.ac.uk/conferences-...

(5) Or perhaps we need to put our energy into developing all available tech to tackle the climate crisis instead of pointing at one and claiming it will never be the silver bullet; should be obvious that’s not how anything works. Food for thought :)

(4) Maybe an idea (as a scientist) could be to advocate for diverting some of the direct and indirect subsidies going to oil & gas to build and develop renewable power generation/storage (to phase out FF)? Or advocate against funding CDR projects as a means to keep going with business as usual?

(3) That said, even if we take all scope 1 emissions in the US (~ 500 Mtonne CO2e/yr) that is $250B a year, based on your $500/tonne figure. Not quite $3T as pointed out in the article, even without considering future tech that will help reduce scope 1 emissions. This ought to be obvious.

(2) No serious proponent of CDR technologies (DAC or otherwise) touts it as a solution to counter emissions from every sector; the consensus is that it is necessary to counter historical, residual, and fugitive emissions. Everything else would require decarbonizing (as you say in your pinned post).

(1) The fact that you as a climate scientist, who who ought to know better, does not address lack of nuance about certain points and instead posts this click/rage bait feels a bit disingenuous. Summarising what I mean in case you genuinely missed it.

Phase Transformations in MOFs Induced by Adsorbate Exchange Deformation of nanoporous materials induced by gas adsorption is a ubiquitous phenomenon that plays an important role in adsorption separations, gas and energy storage, nanosensors, actuators, seconda...

Phase Transformations in MOFs Induced by Adsorbate Exchange, our latest work on the MIL-53 MOF family now out in Langmuir! An analytical model to describe binary coadsorption in flexible materials. #chemsky #compchem pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...