Metal-organic frameworks: current trends, challenges, and future prospects

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an interesting class of porous framework materials that can be generated by the self-assembled coordination of metal ions/clusters with organic connectors. This section focuses on the history of MOFs and the researchers or teams that have made outstanding contributions, with the aim of sorting out the development of MOFs for newcomers and setting up role models to commend their research results, respectively. After nearly three decades of development, the research direction has gradually moved from the exploration of the laws of basic structure to the subjective design of functional applications. True to function highlights the main design methods and summarizes the main areas of application. Finally, it summarizes the challenges faced at this stage in terms of structural validation, functional integration, industrialization, toxicity, and stability, and raises expectations in terms of multidisciplinary collaboration, mass generation, technological innovation, and sustainability.