Securing the Future: Porous Materials in Sensors for National Defense

Engineered porous materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) offer highly tunable, unique characteristics useful for durable, low power, selective gas sensors. This Perspective describes how MOF-based porous materials fit into the quickly emerging gas sensor landscape for national defense applications, and how they are anticipated to play an increasingly important role in the future to ensure national security. Herein is described in detail the relationships between the ability to judicious select porous materials to adsorb targeted key gases and the unique electrical responses for high consequence sensing related applications. Included are the materials strengths and limitations, followed by future materials needs and application growth areas. Finally, the emerging uses of AI/ML for materials and response design are highlighted. Altogether, porous materials such as MOFs offer outstanding chemical selectivity that can be leveraged for enhanced sensing in defense applications, providing better understanding of not only materials aging, but also chemical biological, radiological and nuclear threats.