Faculty

Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi

Courtesy Faculty

Contact

Office: SCA 430
Phone: 813/974-9622
Lab: SCA 436,438
Email: eddaoudi@usf.edu 

Education

• Ph.D., University Denis Diderot Paris VII, Paris, France, 1996
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Arizona State University, 1997-1999
• Research Associate, University of Michigan, 2000-2002

Research

Research in Dr. Eddaoudi group is concerned with the design, synthesis of new functional extended networks and discrete host molecules where desired properties can be incorporated at the design stage.

Recent advances in solid-state chemistry have generated new classes of extended frameworks at a time where we are witnessing an increasing awareness of a need for rigid porous materials with tunable physical properties. Engineering of extended solids from molecular organic building blocks (MOBBs) offers potential due to the advantage it presents for the design of materials that can be tailored and targeted for specific applications, for example, in sensors, gas storage and nanotechnology.

To date MOBBs can be self-assembled into pure organic crystalline frameworks by the formation of reversible intermolecular bonds such as hydrogen bonds; reversibility of these weak bonds, non-covalent interactions, is the key factor behind the facile crystalline growth of these extended organic solid networks. However, the use of non-covalent interaction brings with it framework fragility, chemical and thermal instability. To overcome these deficiencies we will pursue new synthetic routes to generate new classes of crystalline extended networks using covalent assembly of MOBBs. In order to achieve our goal MOBBs will be designed from first principles to carry the needed geometrical and physical information and to direct the formation of target structures. The assembly will be carried out in a single step under mild conditions where organic moieties will conserve their integrity and by pre-organizing the MOBBs in a precise and specific topology prior to the coupling of reactive centers. It is expected that ability to synthesize crystalline covalent organic networks based on the assembly of MOBBs will generate rigid frameworks with tunable proprieties.

Our interest in nanotechnology and materials proprieties is also exemplified by our desire to assemble homogeneous nanocrystals into a periodic network. Materials proprieties can be tuned by controlling their physical sizes: optical, electric and magnetic proprieties of metal nanocrystals (NCs) are size dependent and different from the bulk solid. The self-aggregation of small nanocrystals, the result of many unsatisfied metal bonds, implies that it is difficult to synthesize homogeneous nanocrystals. Introducing capping groups such as alkanethiol, which will form a monolayer on the particle surface, can reduce the interactions between the particles. It has already been shown that functional groups can be introduced on nanocrystal surfaces by ligand exchange, thereby permitting their systematic assembly using non-covalent bonds. Our strategy will be to reduce, in situ, cations that have been periodically presorbed and organized in a crystalline porous framework. Recent advances in porous materials have shown that Metal-Organic Frameworks, a new and emerging class of porous materials, can be designed and synthesized with tunable pore size and functionality. The synthesized to function porous network with available nucleation sites will then act as a template or platform to direct and control the size of the nanocrystals to be produced. To some extent the same approach will be also used to synthesize nanowires.

Students to be involved in this interdisciplinary program will be exposed to a variety of techniques including solid state synthesis, organic and inorganic chemistries, Solvo/Hydro thermal synthesis, characterization techniques (UV-visible, Gas chromatography, solid and solution NMR, Infra-Red (IR), Fluorescence, X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), Single X-ray diffraction, Thermogravimetric Analysis, and Circular Dichroism spectroscopy) and other physical methods to characterize porous materials.