Precise Manufacturing and Assembly of 3D Metal-Organic Frameworks Using Natural Protein Templates

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are an emerging class of multifunctional porous materials assembled from the combination of metal atoms and polydentate bridging ligands in designed orders. The properties and functions of MOFs highly depend on their constructing structures and materials. To date, it remains challenging to precisely manufacture 3d MOFs with both structure and function on demand. Here we report a novel method of manufacturing and assembly of arbitrary yet precise 3d MOFs from natural silk protein templates, using our newly developed “Protein LEGO” approach and a biomineralization process. Our approach holds great promise for facile manufacturing of a class of 3d MOFs with user-defined properties (e.g., size, shape, structure and function) towards chemical trace gas detection and bio-diagnostics applications when both high sensitivity and selectivity are required.