Serial-MOF: Serial Crystallography for MOF systems

Equipment, AAP 2018

Team : Synchrotron SOLEIL

Project leader : William SHEPARD

Abstract :

As a proof-of-principle project to apply serial crystallography methods to Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), a 12-month Post-Doctoral researcher funded via RESPORE, Elke De Zitter, prepared samples on fixed-target supports (micro-crystals of MIL-100(Fe) and ZIF-8), and she successfully collected X-ray serial diffraction data using three different data collection strategies on the micro-focus beamline PROXIMA 2A at Synchrotron SOLEIL. She then developed a pipeline to automatically index and integrate the X-ray diffraction images, classify and scale the data wedges, and then unambiguously resolved their crystal structures. Fixed-target Serial crystallography methods have thus been successfully applied to two well-known MOF systems. Future work will continue along the lines of tackling the challenges discovered in sample preparation and the processing of “still” diffraction images, eventually leading to the application of the method to unknown and transient MOF crystal structures. We thank DIM RESPORE for financing this project, which has lead to the successful tender for a 4-year ANR grant that will permit its continuation and hire post-doctoral and doctoral students

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