A critical bottleneck for the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel has been the development of materials capable of storing it in a sufficiently compact form at ambient temperature. Here we report the synthesis of a porous monolithic metal–organic framework (MOF), which after successful packing and densification reaches 259 cm³ (STP) cm⁻³ capacity. This is the highest value reported to date for conformed shape porous solids, and represents a greater than 50% improvement over any previously reported experimental value. Nanoindentation tests on the monolithic MOF showed robust mechanical properties, with hardness at least 130% greater than that previously measured in its conventional MOF counterparts. Our findings represent a substantial step in the application of mechanically robust conformed and densified MOFs for high volumetric energy storage and other industrial applications.

使用天然气作为运输燃料的关键瓶颈是能够在环境温度下以足够紧凑的形式存储天然气的材料的开发。在这里，我们报道了多孔整体金属有机骨架（MOF）的合成，该骨架在成功包装和致密化后达到259 cm ³（STP）cm ^-3容量。这是迄今报道的形状均匀的多孔固体的最高值，并且比任何先前报道的实验值提高了50％以上。在整体式MOF上进行的纳米压痕测试显示出强大的机械性能，其硬度比以前在其传统MOF同类产品中测得的硬度至少高出130％。我们的发现代表了将机械坚固的密实MOF用于高容量能量存储和其他工业应用的重要一步。