Research trend of metal–organic frameworks: a bibliometric analysis

A bibliometric analysis based on the related articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded database was conducted to gain insight into global trends and hot issues of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). The word clusters of synthesis methods, MOFs’ properties and potential applications and some representative MOFs with related supporting words in title, author keywords, abstract, along with KeyWords Plus were proposed to provide the clues to discover the current research emphases. Y index was introduced to assess the publication characteristics related to the number of first author and corresponding author highly cited articles. Top eight classic articles with total citations since publication to the end of 2014 more than 1000 times (TC2014 > 1000) and top eight classic articles with citations in 2014 more than 165 times (C2014 > 165) were selected and assessed regarding distribution of outputs in journals, publications of authors, institutions, as well as their citation life cycles. Solvothermal (including hydrothermal) method and diffusion (slow evaporation) were used mostly to prepare MOFs. Series representative MOFs, as well as the corresponding composites or film (membrane) arose the wide interests from researchers due to their excellent performances. Among the various properties and potential applications of MOFs, adsorption (gas adsorption and liquid adsorption) took the lead, followed by catalysis (including photocatalysis), as a result of their ultrahigh porosity and even their catalytic property. The results of Y index analysis revealed that most highly cited articles in MOFs field were contributed by Yaghi, O.M. as corresponding author, who published 27 articles with TC2014 (number of citations since its publication to the end of 2014) ≥100. Omar M. Yaghi, as corresponding author (reprint author), contributed most classic articles, which dealt with synthesis strategy of MOFs with high porosity and high capacity of gas storage. The remaining classic ones concerned to catalysis and drug delivery. These classic articles were published in four high impact journals. The analyses on citation life cycles of the classic articles with highest TC2014 and C2014 can help the researchers in MOFs related fields gain insight into their impact histories.