“SPACIOUS and amply proportioned with plenty of storage space.” If MOF – 177 were an apartment, that’s probably how the vendor’s patter would go. But MOF – 177 isn’t a dwelling, it’s a record-breaking crystal whose internal surface area, per gram, is some 4500 square metres, the area of 17 tennis courts. That’s 1300 square metres more than the previous record holder (Nature, vol 427, p 523). The substance was created by a team at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The crystal, of a type known as a metal organic framework, is made up of alternating organic molecules and zinc…
