A Study of the Optimization of the MOF-5 Synthesis Process using Design of Experiments

Statistical design of experiments was used to optimize the MOF-5 synthesis process. A mixture design was employed to optimize precursor concentration. The optimal composition of three chemical materials, terephthalic acid, zinc acetate dihydrate, and N,N-dimethylformamide for MOF-5 synthesis was determined by extreme vertices design methods as follows; 1 mol: 2.7 mol: 40 mol. A multilevel factorial design was selected to screen the significance of synthesis reaction conditions such as temperature, time, and stirring speed. Statistical analysis results suggested excluding stirring speed from further investigation. Using a central composition design, the synthesis time and temperature were optimized. The quadratic model equation was derived from 13 synthesis experiments. The model predicted that MOF-5 synthesized at 119 °C for 10.4 h had the highest crystallinity.