The global urgent transition to clean, sustainable energy systems to mitigate climate change and fossil fuel depletion has catalyzed intensive research into high-performance functional materials that can break through the bottlenecks of existing energy storage and conversion technologies. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), an emerging class of porous crystalline materials constructed from metal nodes and organic linkers, have emerged as a transformative material platform for next-generation energy technologies, owing to their exceptional high specific surface area, atomic-level tunable pore structures, and abundant customizable active sites.
A research team led by Liang Yang from Yan’an University in Shaanxi, China systematically summarized the state-of-the-art advances of MOF materials spanning from nanoscale design principles to real-world energy applications, to accelerate the translation of MOFs from laboratory research to industrial deployment. The review comprehensively covers the rational design strategies of MOFs, their applications across electrochemical energy storage, electrocatalysis and photocatalysis, and the core challenges facing their large-scale commercialization, providing a valuable roadmap for researchers in the energy materials field.
The team published their review in Nano Research on August 27, 2026.
“Our review systematically organizes the latest breakthroughs in MOF research over the past few years, establishing a full-chain framework from molecular-level nanoscale design to macroscopic device application. We not only elaborate the structure-performance relationships of MOFs in different energy scenarios, but also critically analyze the practical device-level barriers hindering their industrial implementation, and outline future research directions including intelligent design, multifunctional integration and standardized performance evaluation,” said Liang Yang, corresponding author of the review, associate professor at the School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yan’an University, and researcher at the Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Intelligent Processing for Big Energy Data.
MOFs distinguish themselves from traditional porous materials such as activated carbon and zeolites through their unprecedented structural and functional tunability. By selecting different metal centers and organic linkers, researchers can precisely regulate pore size, geometry, surface functional groups and electronic structures of MOFs to tailor their properties for specific energy reaction requirements. The review first introduces the core nanoscale design strategies for MOFs, including component regulation of metal nodes and organic ligands, pore size/shape engineering, surface functionalization, dimensional morphology control, and construction of MOF-based composites, highlighting how these strategies optimize mass transport, active site exposure and charge transfer efficiency.
The research team systematically details the wide applications of MOFs across three key energy domains. In electrochemical energy storage, MOFs and their derivatives have delivered exceptional performance in lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells, addressing critical challenges including volumetric expansion of electrode materials, polysulfide shuttle effects in lithium-sulfur batteries, and low proton conductivity of fuel cell membranes under low humidity. In electrocatalysis, MOF-based catalysts exhibit outstanding activity in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO 2 RR), providing low-cost alternatives to noble metal catalysts. In photocatalysis, MOFs demonstrate great potential in photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production, CO 2 reduction, and pollutant degradation, driving the development of sustainable solar energy conversion technologies.
The review also identifies three categories of core challenges hindering the large-scale application of MOFs: fundamental barriers in nanoscale precise synthesis and in-situ dynamic characterization, mesoscale barriers in macroscopic composite fabrication and interfacial performance matching, and commercialization barriers including high synthesis cost, insufficient long-term stability, low packing density and poor batch consistency. To address these challenges, the team proposes future development directions: leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning for high-throughput screening and intelligent design of MOFs, developing multifunctional composite systems to achieve synergistic performance optimization, and establishing unified industry performance evaluation standards to facilitate cross-laboratory collaboration and technology translation.
The research team expects this comprehensive review to provide new insights for MOF research in the energy sector, and inspire further innovative work to advance the widespread application of MOFs in future sustainable energy technologies. “With continuous breakthroughs in synthesis technology, theoretical simulation and industrial processing, MOFs are poised to play an irreplaceable role in driving the global energy revolution and achieving carbon neutrality goals. We anticipate that more high-performance, low-cost MOF materials will move from the laboratory to practical applications in the coming years, making significant contributions to building a low-carbon, sustainable energy system,” Liang Yang added.
Other contributors include Hong Wang, Xiaoxi Guo and Shipeng Fang from the School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yan’an University.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52365069 and 12562017), Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi (No. 2025CYYBXM-099), Scientific Research Program Funded by Shaanxi Provincial Education Department (No. 25JP200), Key Research and Development Program of Yan’an (No. 2025SLGYGG-003).
DOI Link:
https://doi.org/10.26599/NR.2026.94909093
About the Authors
Dr. Liang Yang is an associate professor at the School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yan'an University, China, and independent principal investigator of the Flexible Intelligent Robot Engineering (FIRE) team, with a doctorate from Xi'an Jiaotong University and visiting research experience at the National University of Singapore. His research interests focus on two-dimensional nanomaterials, flexible intelligent materials, bionic artificial muscles, micro-nano mechanical systems and soft robot technology. Until now, he has published more than 70 high-impact papers in authoritative journals including Coordin Chem Rev and Nano Energy, presided over 15 national/provincial/municipal scientific research projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and owns 10 authorized invention and utility model patents. For more information, please pay attention to his research homepage https://wdxy.yau.edu.cn/info/1457/8304.htm.
About Nano Research
Nano Research is a peer-reviewed, open access, international and interdisciplinary research journal, sponsored by Tsinghua University and the Chinese Chemical Society, published by Tsinghua University Press on the platform SciOpen. It publishes original high-quality research and significant review articles on all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology, ranging from basic aspects of the science of nanoscale materials to practical applications of such materials. After 18 years of development, it has become one of the most influential academic journals in the nano field. Nano Research has published more than 1,000 papers every year from 2022, with its cumulative count surpassing 8,000 articles. In 2025 InCites Journal Citation Reports, its 2025 IF is 9.4 (8.3, 5 years), and it continues to be the Q1 area among the four subject classifications. Nano Research Award, established by Nano Research together with TUP and Springer Nature in 2013, and Nano Research Young Innovators (NR45) Awards, established by Nano Research in 2018, have become international academic awards with global influence.
Nano Research
Advanced metal-organic frameworks for next-generation energy storage and conversion: From nanoscale design to widespread applications
27-Aug-2026