A general method for measuring the thermal conductivity of MOF crystals

Abstract Thermal conductivity is a critical parameter for metal-organic framework (MOF) in many practical applications. However, experimental measurement of the thermal conductivity of MOF crystals is of great challenge due to its small size. Herein, we proposed a general method to obtain the thermal conductivity of MOF crystal using MOF powder sample. By measuring the thermal conductivity of compacted MOF powders at varying water contents using transient hot-wire method, the thermal conductivity of MOF crystal can be derived by a biporous effective medium approximation (BEMA) model. The eventually obtained thermal conductivities of three different MOF crystals: UiO-66, UiO-67 and Cu-BTC, are 0.11 W/(m·K), 0.19 W/(m·K), and 0.39 W/(m·K), respectively, consistent with previously reported results of MOF crystals.