Changing the proportions of metals in a metal–organic framework can alter how it responds to magnetic fields and light, how much surface area it presents, and how much CO₂ it takes up. A University of Birmingham team reports that its UoB-116 framework can incorporate as many as 16 different metals while keeping the same underlying crystal structure.
What is the “metallic recipe”?
UoB-116 is a metal–organic framework, or MOF: an ordered structure in which metal atoms are connected by organic molecules, leaving tiny pores. Here, “recipe” means the framework’s metal composition—not a household mixture or a finished consumer product. The team varied which metals, and how much of each, were incorporated while retaining the same basic crystal structure.
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The University of Birmingham announcement of 7 October 2026 says the researchers first made and structurally characterized 15 versions, each containing a different rare-earth metal. They then increased the complexity of the mixtures, reporting frameworks with 2, 4, 12 and 15 metals before adding indium to make a 16-metal version. That final composition contains yttrium, indium and 14 lanthanides. The university described it as the first reported MOF combining metals from the periodic table’s d-, p- and f-blocks, and said it was the highest number of metals reported in one MOF at that time. These are priority claims made by the university announcement.
What changed when the metal proportions changed?
The team compared compositions involving dysprosium and lanthanum. The announcement reports several composition-dependent responses:
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- Magnetic response: Increasing the dysprosium content increased the measured magnetic response.
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The CO₂ figures describe two endpoint compositions in the reported tests; they do not establish which mixture performs best under other temperatures, pressures or uses. More generally, changing the composition shifts different properties in different directions, so the results describe trade-offs rather than one universally superior formulation.
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The main finding is that metal composition can be varied within a shared porous framework and that the resulting material properties can change. The announcement presents UoB-116 as a route toward more deliberately tailored porous materials. Professor Neil Champness, the study’s corresponding author and Head of School at the University of Birmingham, said: “Our findings confirm a route towards ‘programmable’ porous materials, where scientists could choose a combination of metals to dial magnetic, optical, chemical, or gas-adsorption behaviour.”
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The announcement does not provide the experimental protocols, uncertainty or error bars, or the measurement temperature and pressure for the reported uptake figures. It also does not establish scale-up or commercial deployment. Champness said that predicting how strongly particular metals will be incorporated could offer finer control over future multi-metal materials; that is a prospective capability, not evidence that a commercial material or application is already available.
Where could this approach be useful?
MOFs as a broader class are being investigated for gas storage and separation, sensing, catalysis, bio-imaging and magnetic materials. The university announcement also identifies possible opportunities including hydrogen storage, carbon capture, water harvesting, chemical separations and drug delivery or imaging. These are research directions and potential uses; the announcement does not show that UoB-116 is already deployed for them.
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The study is named in the announcement as “Rare-Earth Multivariate Metal–Organic Frameworks: Cationic Radius Biased Compositional Control and Property Tuning,” published in Angewandte Chemie. The announcement is available from the University of Birmingham.
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