pH-stable MOFs: Design principles and applications

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been attracting tremendous attention and recognized as one of the most promising porous materials due to their great structural diversity and functional tunability, though the progress on the transition from academia to industry is still at early stage. Despite numerous inherent merits and excellent progress in the fundamental research, their chemical environment instability limits their practical usage and thus considered as one of the prime bottlenecks for their plausible industrialization. In the recent past, great efforts have been made in developing strategies to improve the MOFs' chemical stability, especially toward a broad range in pH medium and demand urgent summarization. It is realized that in general a combination of at least two stability factors is responsible to attain pH stability, whereas only one factor is sufficient enough to impart hydro-stability onto the framework backbone. Five major application areas where pH-stable MOFs are intended to deploy have been identified. Thus, this review offers an account of pH-stable MOFs since its resurgence in terms of design principles and directed application domains. A 'Critical Analysis' section offers crucial key insights of the pH-stable MOFs those are mostly overlooked. Based on the critical evaluation of the advancement made thus far, the current fundamental tasks in this field have been highlighted and future recommendations are made for further developments from industrial deployment viewpoints.