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January, 2021

Hybrid glasses, formed by melt-quenching a selection of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), have been recently recognised as a 4th category of melt quenched glass, lying outside of the traditional metallic, inorganic and organic categories. Their three dimensional structures consist of transition metal ions linked by organic ligands. As such, they possess significantly softer mechanical properties than inorganic glasses.

In this work, we have combined the liquid states of both hybrid, and inorganic glass systems together in one material. Importantly, we show the formation of interfacial interactions, and the resulting moderation in mechanical properties of the inorganic glass. In the future, we hope that this will serve as the first demonstration of the ability to reduce the brittle nature of inorganics by combining with the hybrid glass state.

Figure caption: 2D representations of a The structure of the MOF, showing ZnN4 tetrahedra connected by imidazolate (Im) and benzimidazolate (bIm) organic ligands and  b The local structure of the (1−x)([Na2O]z[P2O5])-x([AlO3/2][AlF3]y)  glass series. The inorganic glasses are composed of varying lengths of phosphate tetrahedra chains and Al(OP)4F2 octahedra with Na+ as the counter cation.  Key: N – light blue, Zn – yellow, C – dark grey, P –dark blue, O – orange, Al – light grey, F – green, Na – purple, H – omitted for clarity.

L. Longley, C. Calahoo, R. Limbach, Y. Xia, J. M. Tuffnell, A. F. Sapnik, M. F. Thorne, D. S. Keeble, D. A. Keen, L. Wondraczek, T. D. Bennett, "Metal-Organic Framework and Inorganic Glass Composites", Nature Communications 11 (2020) 5800.

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