Dr. Barry Blight and his team of chemistry researchers at UNB play with molecules the way other people play with Lego. The remarkable structures they’re creating have the potential to revolutionize the way we reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, build electronic displays, and deliver medicine.
Molecules with many possible applications
How can a single lab engage in research with such diverse implications? The Blight Chemistry Group focuses on a class of molecules called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs for short), which can be shaped to suit many different purposes.
Dr. Blight compares MOF molecules to microscopic cages. MOFs are porous substances, and chemists can adjust the size of their pores through a process called “tuning.”
Explains Dr. Blight, “We can actually engineer them to have really crazy internal surface area. One gram of these materials can have up to 3,000 m2 of surface area inside.”
If you were to unfold one gram of MOFs produced in Dr. Blight’s lab and lay it flat, it would cover three-quarters of an acre. That hidden surface area could provide super-compact storage capacity for various substances, including harmful gasses, luminescent substances, and drugs.
Marvels of molecular storage
MOFs offer a promising way to accelerate technology for removing carbon from the atmosphere. Existing technologies require a lot of space for storing captured carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Typically the CO2 is piped into a vast underground reservoir or rock formation. With specially tuned MOFs, however, carbon capture could become highly efficient.
Dr. Blight’s team has also discovered possible ways to use MOFs in public health and medicine.
Monitoring the quality of drinking water is one potential use of engineered MOFs. Some MOFs have luminescent properties—when they absorb energy, they emit light. Because luminescent materials are very sensitive, a tiny bit of custom-tuned MOFs could be added to the water supply and used to signal health threats.
MOFs could also serve as hosts for drugs that need to release in the body over an extended period of time. Picture an MOF forming the shell of a capsule that delivers a drug not just over 4 hours but over 12 hours or longer.
Additionally, Dr. Blight’s team has discovered that MOFs may influence the way that drugs pass through cell membranes. That property could open opportunities for improving the way we treat diseases such as cancer and cystic fibrosis.
Diverse discoveries come from team diversity
Dr. Blight first got hooked on toying with engineering molecules as an undergraduate, but most of his work is now project and team management rather than hands-on lab work. He oversees a seven researchers’ team, and he’s proud of how diverse that team is. He sees his team’s diversity as an important factor driving the discoveries the lab is making in different domains.
“Whenever we're developing new systems or new experiments, we're often drawn by some kind of inspiration or some kind of creativity to help drive that forward,” says Dr. Blight. “And there's no better way to ensure that creativity grows than by having a diverse group of people doing the science.”
