Recent advances and challenges of metal-organic framework/ graphene-based composites

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new kind of porous crystalline material synthesized by the assembly of metal ions and organic ligands, which have the advantages of a large specific surface area, high porosity, and tunable pore structures and morphological features. Owing to their ease of design as well as uniform and finetunable pore structures, MOFs are widely employed in several applications, such as in catalysts, supercapacitors, adsorbents, sensors, environmental protection, and drug delivery. However, the poor stability and electrical conductivity of traditional MOFs limit their applications. Using graphene-based materials with rich functional groups as templates for the growth of MOF particles can not only alleviate the poor conductivity and structural instability of MOFs, but also avoid the aggregation and restacking phenomenon between graphene sheets, thereby greatly expanding the application scope of MOFs. Due to the tunable structure and composition of derivatives, MOF-derived/graphene materials can also be used as multifunctional precursors, especially in the field of electrochemistry. The latest synthesis methods of MOF/graphene composites and their derivatives, as well as their diverse applications, are reviewed in this paper. In addition, the future development opportunities and challenges corresponding to MOF/graphene composites are discussed.