Beam-sensitive metal-organic framework structure determination by microcrystal electron diffraction

Fateme Banihashemi; Guanhong Bu; Amar Thaker; Dewight Williams; Jerry Y S Lin; Brent L Nannenga

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2020.113048

Beam-sensitive metal-organic framework structure determination by microcrystal electron diffraction

Ultramicroscopy. 2020 Sep:216:113048. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2020.113048. Epub 2020 Jun 10.

Authors

Fateme Banihashemi¹, Guanhong Bu², Amar Thaker², Dewight Williams³, Jerry Y S Lin¹, Brent L Nannenga⁴

Affiliations

¹ Chemical Engineering, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, 501 E. Tyler Mall, PO Box 876106, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States.
² Chemical Engineering, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, 501 E. Tyler Mall, PO Box 876106, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States; Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, 727 East Tyler Street, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States.
³ John M. Cowley Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States.
⁴ Chemical Engineering, School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Arizona State University, 501 E. Tyler Mall, PO Box 876106, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States; Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, 727 East Tyler Street, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States. Electronic address: [email protected].

Abstract

Analysis of metal-organic framework (MOF) structure by electron microscopy and electron diffraction offers an alternative to growing large single crystals for high-resolution X-ray diffraction. However, many MOFs are electron beam-sensitive, which can make structural analysis using high-resolution electron microscopy difficult. In this work we use the microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) method to collect high-resolution electron diffraction data from a model beam-sensitive MOF, ZIF-8. The diffraction data could be used to determine the structure of ZIF-8 to 0.87 Å from a single ZIF-8 nanocrystal, and this refined structure compares well with previously published structures of ZIF-8 determined by X-ray crystallography. This demonstrates that MicroED can be a valuable tool for the analysis of beam-sensitive MOF structures directly from nano and microcrystalline material.

Keywords: CryoEM; Crystallography; Electron diffraction; Metal-organic framework; MicroED; Microcrystal electron diffraction.

Abstract

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