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Picture of the Month - October 2026

Mixed-Matrix-Membranes, Hydrogels, and Cryogels based on Nanoscale Metal-Organic Frameworks and Biopolymers

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) allow for a large amount of different properties and potential applications due to their versatility of different possible chemical components and constituents. As flexible porous materials, they can also be combined with other materials to multi-functional composites further enlarging their materials interest.

In the respective work, we combined highly luminescent MOFs with the natural biopolymers agar and gelatine to Mixed-Matrix-Membranes (MMMs) combining both, MOF and polymer features. Depending on the synthesis conditions, the composite materials can be tuned towards biodegradable, on water-base fully recyclable, functional membranes as well as towards hydrogel character or highly flexible and plastically fully deformable cryogels.

Membranes were shown to allow ten cycles of a high-quality recycling leading back to exactly the same membranes without adding new vanilla material. The MOFs thereby fully maintain their luminescence and can act as optical probes and sensors for atmospheric gases and volatile organic molecules. As cryogels, they allow for deformation by half of their original expansion while staying fully plastically deformable at RT. The key to these different material characters is the synthesis of nano-scaled MOF particles. 

Ref.: M. Maxeiner, J. Burkhart, K. Borysova, C. Mazzariol, K. Müller‐Buschbaum, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2025, 2506570, https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.202400785 in Advanced Functional Materials: Volume 36, Issue 43, Special Issue: Coordination Networks: Building Blocks for Functional Systems, 29 May 2026.

This picture was submitted by Prof. Dr. Klaus Müller-Buschbaum.

Further insights into the research activities of the ZfM groups can be found in the Gallery.