Underlying solvent-based factors that influence permanent porosity in porous liquids

Porous liquids (PLs) offer the potential to combine the ready handling and mature industry status of liquid absorbents, with the high permanent porosity of metal organic frameworks. To be functional, these nanocomposites need to satisfy a number of performance parameters, such as stability and viscosity of the porogen-solvent combination, avoiding solvent penetration into metal organic framework (MOF) pores, suitable capacities, and kinetics for gas sorption. In this work, we systematically investigate the component materials to elucidate the parametric space where stable photoluminescence (PL) can be generated. In this situation, deeper conclusions were able to be drawn with regard to the influence of hydrophobicity/philicity on the properties of the resulting nanocomposites. Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) were combined with a range of solvents varying in steric bulk, to deliver CO₂ sorption capacities as high as 4.2 mmol·g^–1 at 10 bar. These findings may have broader implications for future investigations of this tantalising field of nanocomposites.