New web apps help standardise how chemists assign colours to MOFs
Survey highlighting the subjective nature of colour prompts scientists to create new tools to improve chemical records
Records for around 9000 of the over 100,000 MOFs listed in the Cambridge Structure Database (CSD) include a colour. A Twitter survey by Berend Smit and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) saw participants assign 4184 different colours to the 162 colour names used to describe MOFs in the CSD. The survey highlighted just how subjective colour descriptions are. Now, Smit’s team has developed two web applications to help users maintain objectivity when using colours to describe their MOFs.