Making MOF Research Reproducible with MPIF

Reproducibility has always been a major challenge in the MOF field. Even when following the same published synthesis, different research groups often obtain materials of varying quality—or even entirely different phases. Why? Because crucial details such as solvent grade, vessel type, or humidity are frequently missing, ambiguous, or inconsistently reported.

To address this, the EU4MOFs community has developed the Material Preparation Information File (MPIF) – a new STAR-based, human + machine readable (same data architecture family as CIF/AIF).

What makes MPIF special?

• Human- and machine-readable
• A single file that encodes the full protocol plus essential characterisation (e.g., PXRD/TGA; AIF embeddable)
• Captures the full synthesis context (reagents, conditions, equipment, and key characterization data)
• Supports reproducibility in the lab
• Built for FAIR workflows and seamless integration with ELNs, repositories, automation, and AI

Explore MPIF resources

All materials are collected at www.mpif4ever.com, including:

• A user-friendly GUI: mpif.jackdevans.com

• The poster presented at EuroMOF2025 (Session 1, #38)

• A podcast introducing MPIF

• The full manuscript

We thank everyone who contributed to making this initiative possible!

Call to action

Start using MPIF now for your syntheses and include it in your Supporting Information. Tell your colleagues and students to do the same. As a community, let’s make MPIF the new standard—and work with editors and reviewers to make it a required element for reporting MOF syntheses. The broader the adoption, the stronger and more reproducible our field will become.

For more information, feel free to contact us at mpif4ever@gmail.com, or reach out directly to dariusz.matoga@uj.edu.pl and ocean.cheung@angstrom.uu.se.