Date: Wednesday, March 1st, 2017 

Time: 11:00 AM 

Location: Building 4, Room 125

Scientist and group Leader in Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development group at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

The quest for growing Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) as thin films and integrating them into thin film-based applications is gaining more and more interest in the last decade. The potential applications of MOFs thin films are directly correlated to the unique structural characteristics and properties of MOFs over conventional porous solids. Due to their hybrid character and modular nature, MOFs are regarded as a new generation of porous materials with significant prospects for addressing current challenges pertinent to energy and environmental sustainability. Their unique tunability, which is not readily accessible in conventional porous materials (e.g., purely inorganic zeolites), offers great potential for their effective integration and exploration in various applications like gas storage, gas separation, catalysis, sensing, drug release, and many others. In the past years several synthesis schemes have been developed for the fabrication of porous MOF thin films coatings supported on various substrates; like solvo-thermal and liquid phase-epitaxy (LPE) approach. Accordingly, our group among others is exploring various strategies for the fabrication of MOFs thin films and their prospective use in various kinds of application like sensing and membranes. The possibility to synthesis and control the growth of homogenous MOFs thin films on various substrates like gold, alumina and mesoporous silica foam substrates using the stepwise LPE approach will be demonstrated. In addition the fabrication of continuous MOF thin film as membranes using the solvo-thermal method and the LPE approach and their characterization will be shown. The fabrication and properties of the first sod-ZMOF thin-film membrane, that exhibits a favorable permeation selectivity toward carbon dioxide over relevant industrial gases such as H2, N2 and CH4, and it is mainly governed by favorable CO2 adsorption will be also highlighted. The application of MOFs for sensing toxic gases through the fabrication of an advanced sensor for the detection of Hydrogen Sulfide andammonia (NH3) at room temperature, using thin films of rare-earth metal (RE)-based metal-organic framework (MOF) will be also shown. This unique MOF-based sensor is made via the in situ growth of fcu-MOF thin film on a capacitive interdigitated electrode. The sensor showed a remarkable detection sensitivity for H2S and NH3 at concentrations down to ppb and ppm respectively. The fcu-MOF sensor exhibits a highly desirable detection selectivity towards H2S and NH3 vs. CH4, NO2, H2, and C7H8 as well as an outstanding sensing stability as compared to other reported MOFs.

Dr. Osama Shekhah, born 1973, studied chemistry in Jordan. He received his PhD in the field of physical and surface chemistry in 2004 from the Free University Berlin and Fritz-Haber Institute under the supervision of Prof. R. Schlogl. He then worked for one year as a postdoc at the Fritz-Haber institute in Berlin. In 2005 he joined the physical chemistry group of Prof. C. Woll at the Ruhr-University Bochum as a staff scientist. In 2009 he moved to Karlsruhe Institute of Technology with Prof. C. Woll as a group leader at the institute of functional interfaces. In 2011 he joined the FMD3 group of Prof. M. Eddaoudi at KAUST as a group leader. His research interests include surface chemistry, material chemistry, self-assembled monolayers, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) porous material synthesis, growth and their thin films fabrication and applications. His important works have been published in Nature publishing journals, JACS, Angew. Chem. Int. Edn., Advanced materials and other reputed journals. Also key works have been highlighted in the cover of advanced materials, JACS, Angew. Chem. Int. Edn. and Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). 

There will be a get-together with refreshments at 10:45-11:00 a.m.​