3.1. Silver adsorption and effects on ZIF-62 crystal structure
The pure ZIF-62 crystal structure was prepared in three different benzimidazole to imidazole ratios using a previously reported method with slight changes.[27] This is to study the effects of silver interactions on the thermal dynamics of these structures at different melting points. Thermal dynamics in this context can be defined as the structural dynamics that occur upon the introduction/removal of heat. The as-synthesized ZIF-62 were labelled as ZIF-62-a, ZIF-62-b, and ZIF-62-c in increasing benzimidazole ratio within the structure. The benzimidazole (bIm) to imidazole (Im) ratio in ZIF-62 can usually be denoted in the form of Zn(Im)2-x(bIm)x. The actual benzimidazole to imidazole ratio was measured using liquid state NMR as per Table 2.
Table 2: Measured benzimidazole to imidazole ratio for different variation of ZIF-62 via NMR