Coordination-Chemistry Control of Proton Conductivity in the Iconic Metal-Organic Framework Material HKUST-1

HKUST-1, a metal organic framework (MOF) material containing Cu-II-paddlewheel-type nodes and 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate struts, features accessible Cu-II sites to which solvent or other desired molecules can be intentionally coordinated. As part of a broader investigation of ionic conductivity in MOFs, we unexpectedly observed substantial proton conductivity with the as synthesized version of this material following sorption of methanol. Although HKUST-1 is neutral, coordinated water molecules are rendered sufficiently acidic by Cu-II to contribute protons to pore-filling methanol molecules and thereby enhance the alternating-current conductivity. At ambient temperature, the chemical identities of the node-coordinated and pore-filling molecules can be independently varied, thus enabling the proton conductivity to be reversibly modulated. The proton conductivity of HKUST-1 was observed to increase by similar to 75-fold, for example, when node-coordinated acetonitrile molecules were replaced by water molecules. In contrast, the conductivity became almost immeasurably small when methanol was replaced by hexane as the pore-filling solvent.