Professor Omar M. Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter Professor of Chemistry at University of California-Berkeley, was the honored speaker at the Axalta Distinguished Lectures Series sponsored by Axalta Coating Systems and hosted by the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.  Professor Yaghi’s lecture titled, Reticular Chemistry and the Design of New Materials, explained how his group created metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with extended crystalline order, and the subsequent design of new materials for clean energy storage and complex separations.

According to Professor Yaghi, the logical synthesis of extended solids has been a long-standing objective in chemistry.  The fundamental problem has been that linking molecular building units into extended structures often led to amorphous or poorly crystalline solids.  The research indicated that the problem is now solved with the design and development of MOFs.  The major conceptual advance is the use of metal-oxide clusters as anchors for joining organic linkers into robust crystalline open frameworks.  This new approach is being applied to help develop materials with controlled porosity and pore-functionality.  It has led to the design of less dense crystals, the highest surface area materials, and a large number of truly porous crystals. This chemistry has found applications in the storage of methane, separation of carbon dioxide, and catalysis.

“This year’s lecture continues a long-history of collaborations with the University, a top academic institution, and is part of Axalta’s commitment to foster innovation and the advancement of coating sciences, material sciences and chemistry,” explained Panos Kordomenos, Axalta Coating Systems Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.  “The collaboration between Axalta and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania helps to enable world-class scientists to share their research and perspectives with students, faculty members and Axalta researchers in an academic setting,” Kordomenos added.

Professor Yaghi has published more than 200 articles that have received an average of over 300 citations per article.  He is widely known for inventing new materials that are useful in clean energy storage and generation.  His recent work includes the design of crystalline materials capable of storage and separation of molecules or compounds such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, water and volatile organics.

“The relationship and collaboration with Axalta has resulted in groundbreaking research programs and opportunities to interact with and learn from some of the most eminent scholars in the world,” said Gary A. Molander, Department Chair and Hirschmann-Makineni Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.  “We are grateful to Axalta for its support in bringing Dr. Yaghi to share his research with us this year. We look forward to continued collaborations with Axalta in the years ahead.”

Axalta is committed to advancing the science, especially the chemistry of materials, for producing coatings that are built to perform.  Prior series speakers have included world renowned scientists, including Nobel Prize laureates William Moerner (Chemistry 2014), Ahmed Zewail (Chemistry 1999), Harold Kroto (Chemistry 1996), Steven Chu (Physics 1997), Richard Smalley (Chemistry 1996), George Olah (Chemistry 1994), P.G. de Gennes (Physics 1991), Elias Corey (Chemistry 1990), Thomas Cech (Chemistry 1989), Donald Cram (Chemistry 1987), Jean-Marie Lehn (Chemistry 1987), John Polanyi (Chemistry 1986), Yuan Lee (Chemistry 1986), Roald Hoffmann (Chemistry 1981), and Herbert Brown (Chemistry 1979).