[Nat Commun] Shining New Light on Air Pollutants Using Entangled Porous Frameworks

January 26, 2011
Certain types of pollution monitoring may soon become considerably easier. A group of researchers centered at Kyoto University has shown in a recent Nature Communications paper that a newly-formulated entangled framework of porous crystals (porous coordination polymers, or PCPs) can not only capture a variety of common air pollutants, but that the mixtures then glow in specific, easily-detected colors. Lead author for the paper was Dr. Yohei Takashima.
Until now, chemical sensors have generally needed to be custom-designed to recognize specific compounds, and a separate transmission mechanism was required in order to "see" that a particular molecule had indeed been successfully captured.
"We have created what amount to be interlocking jungle-gyms, that move relative to each other and are therefore able to capture molecules of varying sizes," explained Dr. Shuhei Furukawa of Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS).
This naphthalenediimide-based PCP, known as NDI, expands and contracts to confine air-born volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, xylene, anisole, and iodobenzene, which are common pollutants in the lower atmosphere.
"When exposed to ultraviolet light, the NDI-VOC interaction luminesces in an unusually wide range of colors, sufficiently intense to be observed even with the naked eye," elaborated iCeMS Professor and deputy director, Susumu Kitagawa.
These findings, including contributions from Dr. Virginia Martínez Martínez at the Universidad del PaĆs Vasco in Bilbao, open the door to the development of a new range of portable, solid-state pollution detectors, and possibly even new types of light sources.
Publication Information
Molecular decoding using luminescence from an entangled porous framework
Yohei Takashima, Virginia Martínez Martínez, Shuhei Furukawa, Mio Kondo, Satoru Shimomura, Hiromitsu Uehara, Masashi Nakahama, Kunihisa Sugimoto, and Susumu Kitagawa
Nature Communications, 2, no. 168 | DOI:10.1038/ncomms1170
Published online January 25, 2011
Media Coverage
- Newton [Tokyo] (May 7, 2011 issue page 5)
- Environment Business [Tokyo] (April 2011 issue page 115)
Kansai Unity "Kippo News" (February 16, 2011 web)
- The Science News [Tokyo] (February 11, 2011 page 1)
AZo Journal of Materials Online (January 28, 2011 web)
- Yomiuri Shimbun (January 27, 2011 page 33)
- Asahi Shimbun (January 27, 2011 evening edition page 6)
Kyodo/47News (January 26, 2011 web)
Chunichi Shimbun (January 26, 2011 page 24)
- Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun (January 26, 2011 page 29)
The Nikkei (January 26, 2011 page 34)
- Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun (January 26, 2011 page 9)
- Mainichi Shimbun (January 26, 2011 page 3)
- Kyoto Shimbun (January 26, 2011 page 25)
Spektrumdirekt (January 25, 2011 web)
redOrbit (2011.1.25),
ScienceDaily (2011.1.26) and others based on
EurekAlert! (2011.1.25)