Group News

August 6, 2025

Congratulations to Tori for receiving the prestigious Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) Fellowship! We are incredibly proud of Tori’s achievement and can’t wait to see the impact of her work. Way to go, Tori!

April 16, 2025

Congratulations to Hannah, Mycah and Sebastian, our work “Unifying the pts and sql Isomers of the Lanthanide-pETTC Metal–Organic Frameworks” has been accepted by Energy &Fuels. Good Job!

TOC showing the difference structures could be formd using the same ligand.

April 23, 2024

Congratulations to Hannah, Matt, Fidelia, Lauren, Dylan, and Jiahong, our work “Probing Ligand Conformation and Net Dimensionality in a Series of Tetraphenylethene-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks” has been accepted by Frontiers in Chemistry. Good Job!

April 18, 2024

Congratulations to Hannah, our collaborative work “Cationic Radical Metal–Organic Framework Enabling Low Water Evaporation Enthalpy and High Photothermal Conversion Efficiency for Solar-Driven Water Purification” with the Liu group has been published by Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Good Job!

TOC showing the "Cationic Radical Metal–Organic Framework Enabling Low Water Evaporation Enthalpy and High Photothermal Conversion Efficiency for Solar-Driven Water Purification.

February 22, 2024

Congratulations to Hannah, our collaborative work “Uranyl uptake into metal–organic frameworks: a detailed X-ray structural analysis” with the Moreau group has been published by Dalton Transactions. Good Job!

Graphical abstract: Uranyl uptake into metal–organic frameworks: a detailed X-ray structural analysis

October 27, 2023

Congratulations to Sheng (Jason), our collaborative work “NiFe Nanoparticle Nest Supported on Graphene as Electrocatalyst for Highly Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction” with the Lin group has been published by Small. Good job!

October 11, 2023

Congratulations to Jiahong, our collaborative work “Synergetic catalytic effect in functionalized HP-MOF system for boosted catalytic performances” with the Guo group has been published by Chemical Engineering Journal. Good job!

Synergetic catalytic effect in functionalized HP-MOF system for boosted catalytic performances

May 5, 2023

Congratulations to Sheng for being selected to receive the Philip H. Adelson Graduate Fellowship for the second year! Good Job!

April 28, 2023

Congrats to Hannah on successfully defending her proposal today! Now an ABD – well done, Hannah!

April 14, 2023

Congratulations to Sheng for being selected to receive the William and Mary Lynn Graber Endowment in Sciences Scholarship! Excellent work! Sheng will work on Uranium extraction.

April 10, 2023

Congratulations to Anika for being awarded the GPSA Dissertation Grant! Excellent work!

April 4, 2023

Congratulations to Jiahong, she successfully defended her dissertation. Another Dr. Li from the Zhang lab.

Sepember 13, 2022

Congratulations to Jiahong, our collaborative work “Energetic Systematics of Metal–Organic Frameworks: A Case Study of Al(III)-Trimesate MOF Isomers” with the Guo group has been published by Inorganic Chemistry Good job!

"Energetic Systematics of Metal–Organic Frameworks: A Case Study of Al(III)-Trimesate MOF Isomers

May 10, 2022

Congratulations to Lauren, she has been recognized as one of the 2022 College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Seniors.

April 6, 2022

Congratulations to Lauren for winning the Crimson award of Applied Sciences in SURCA 2022.

January 18, 2022

Congratulations to Lauren, she has been selected to receive the Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, or Creative Activity Support. This award will support her to conduct carbon dioxide related research.

December 15, 2021

Congratulations to Matt and Xiaoyu, our collaborative work with the Zhong group at MME on applications of MOFs in Lithium battery has been published in Small.

“MOF-Enabled Ion-Regulating Gel Electrolyte for Long-Cycling Lithium Metal Batteries Under High Voltage” Fu, Xuewei, Hurlock, Matthew J. , Ding, Chenfeng, Li, Xiaoyu, Zhang, Qiang,* Zhong, Wei-Hong*, Small, (Early View) https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202106225.

October 11, 2021

Group photo indoor-style:

October 5, 2021

Brandon Bunch joined the group as an undergraduate researcher, welcome Brandon!

September 17, 2021

Three of our graduate students are selected to receive graduate fellowships!!!

Congratulations to Matt, he has been selected to receive the Donald S. Matteson Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry.

Congratulations to Anika, she has been selected to receive the Frank A. Fowler Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry.

Congratulations to Jiahong, she has been selected to receive the Julian Culbertson Fellowship.

July 14, 2021

Congratulations to Leiduan, Anika, Guodong and Xiaoyu, our collaborative work “Selective hydroxylation of aryl iodides to produce phenols under mild conditions using a supported copper catalyst” (Invited contribution) has been published by RSC Advances, Good job!

Selective hydroxylation of aryl iodides to produce phenols under mild conditions using a supported copper catalyst

June 14, 2021

Congratulations to Matt and Leiduan, our collaborative work with the Guo group and O’Keeffe group “Evolution of 14-Connected Zr₆ Secondary Building Units through Postsynthetic Linker Incorporation” (Invited contribution) has been published by ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Good job!

Evolution of 14-Connected Zr6 Secondary Building Units through Postsynthetic Linker Incorporation

May 18, 2021

Congratulations to Lydia, she has been recognized as one of the 2021 College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Seniors.

Lydia Weddle winning outstadning senior.

March 12, 2021

Congratulations to Jiahong, Matt and Xiaoyu, their collaborative work “Solvent-Free and Phase-Selective Synthesis of Aluminum Trimesate Metal–Organic Frameworks” has been published by Inorganic Chemistry Good job!

Solvent-Free and Phase-Selective Synthesis of Aluminum Trimesate Metal–Organic Frameworks

February 4, 2021

Congratulations to Matt and Fidelia , their work “Two Cd-Based Luminescent Coordination Polymers Constructed from a Truncated Linker” has been published by Inorganic Chemistry Good job!

September 7, 2020

Congratulations to Leiduan and Lydia, their work “Zr-based MOFs for oxidative desulfurization: What matters?” has been published by Green Chem. Good job! This is a collaborative work with Prof. Sebastian Stoian at University of Idaho.

June 9, 2020

Congratulations to Xiaoyu, her work “Microwave-assisted Synthesis of Zirconium Phosphate Nanoplatelets Supported Ru-Anadem Nano-structures and Their Catalytic Study for the Hydrogenation of Acetophenone” has been published by ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces.

Microwave-assisted Synthesis of Zirconium Phosphate Nanoplatelets Supported Ru-Anadem Nano-structures and Their Catalytic Study for the Hydrogenation of Acetophenone

April 3rd, 2020

Congratulations to Guodong, his work “Atomically dispersed palladium catalyses Suzuki–Miyaura reactions under phosphine-free conditions” has been accepted and published online by one of the new Nature journals, Communications Chemistry.

February 26, 2020

Our collaborative paper “Molten NaCl-induced MOF-derived Carbon-polyhedron Decorated Carbon-nanosheet with High Defects and High N-doping for Boosting the Removal of Carbamazepine from Water” has been accepted and published online by Environmental Science: Nano.

Illuastration showing how HCCs are made.

October 10, 2019

Our review paper has been accepted for publication by European Journal of Organic Chemistry. Congratulations to Leiduan, Guodong and Derek.

August 23, 2019

Congratulations to Matt, he has been selected to receive the James P & Lee Ella Ruck Grad Fellowship in Chemistry for the 2019-20 academic year.

August 12, 2019

Congratulations to Derek, he has been accepted into the WSU-PNNL Distinguished Graduate Research Program. He will spend his last two years of graduate research at PNNL working with Dr. Praveen Thallapally.

April 9, 2019

Congratulations to Leiduan, Our work “Efficient oxidative desulfurization using a mesoporous Zr-based MOF” has been accepted by Catalysis Today.

April 4, 2019

Our collaborative work with Dr. Mazur has been accepted by Langmuir.

March 25, 2019

Dr. Zhang has been selected as one of the 22 Emerging Investigators in Crystal Growth & Design.

January 25, 2019

We helped the Dr. Universe to answer chemistry questions from kids. See the article What are molecules?

January 17, 2019

Our collaborative work with Dr. Lin from MME has been accepted by ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

November 11, 2018

Congratulations to Leiduan, the collaborative work has been accepted by New Journal of Chemistry.

September 25, 2018

Congratulations to Leiduan, her work has been accepted by Chem. Comm.

August 31, 2018

Congratulations to Matt, his work has been accepted by Crystal Growth & Design, good job!

TOC showing the sensing of explosives using isomers.

June 6, 2018

The Zhang group has received the WSU SEED Grant. We thank WSU for the support!

May 16, 2018

Chris graduated with a Master degree in Chemistry, congratulations! We wish you all the best!

April 13, 2018

Dr. Zhang has been recognized as one of the outstanding reviewers for for Materials Chemistry Frontiers in 2017.

Dr. Zhang is recoganized as the reviewer of the year.

December 15, 2017

Dr. Zhang is one of the 2018 ALASKA AIRLINES TRAVEL AWARD Winners. Thank you Alaska Airlines for the support!

August 28, 2017

We hosted the Campus Adventures kids camp in our new labs. It’s in the The Daily Evergreen.

Check out the news story about Campus Adventures kids camp in our lab in The Daily Evergreen.

August 5, 2017

We had a group party to celebrate the successful lab move!

August 2, 2017

We have moved to the new labs in Troy. Take a look at the new labs.

July 1, 2017

Matt has been awarded the Frank A. Fowler Endowed Graduate Fellowship in Chemistry! It is an honorable award for a first year graduate student. Congratulations Matt!