The molecular building block approach was employed effectively to construct a series of novel isoreticular, highly porous and stable, aluminum-based metal–organic frameworks with soc topology. From this platform, three compounds were experimentally isolated and fully characterized: namely, the parent Al-soc-MOF-1 and its naphthalene and anthracene analogues. Al-soc-MOF-1 exhibits outstanding gravimetric methane uptake (total and working capacity). It is shown experimentally, for the first time, that the Al-soc-MOF platform can address the challenging Department of Energy dual target of 0.5 g/g (gravimetric) and 264 cm3 (STP)/cm3 (volumetric) methane storage. Furthermore, Al-soc-MOF exhibited the highest total gravimetric and volumetric uptake for carbon dioxide and the utmost total and deliverable uptake for oxygen at relatively high pressures among all microporous MOFs. In order to correlate the MOF pore structure and functionality to the gas storage properties, to better understand the structure–propert...

A series of highly porous MOFs were deliberately targeted to contain a 12-connected rare earth hexanuclear cluster and quadrangular tetracarboxylate ligands. The resultant MOFs have an underlying topology of ftw, and are thus (4,12)-c ftw-MOFs. This targeted rare earth ftw-MOF platform offers the potential to assess the effect of pore functionality and size, via ligand functionalization and/or expansion, on the adsorption properties of relevant gases. Examination of the gas adsorption properties of these compounds showed that the ftw-MOF-2 analogues, constructed from rigid ligands with a phenyl, naphthyl, or anthracene core exhibited a relatively high degree of porosity. The specific surface areas and pore volumes of these analogs are amongst the highest reported for RE-based MOFs. Further studies revealed that the Y-ftw-MOF-2 shows promise as a storage medium for methane (CH₄) at high pressures. Furthermore, Y-ftw-MOF-2 shows potential as a separation agent for the selective removal of normal butane (n-C₄H₁₀) and propane (C₃H₈) from natural gas (NG) as well as interesting properties for the selective separation of n-C₄H₁₀ from C₃H₈ or isobutane (iso-C₄H₁₀).