It is one of the few MOFs to date that has achieved commercial success. Also sold under the trademark name Basolite A520, this MOF has been studied for use in the automotive industry as a sorbent to store and deliver natural gas and as a sorbent for ethylene gas for fresh produce packaging. AlF is permanently porous and contains square channel pores (Figure ). The framework consists of infinite -Al-OH-Al-chains connected by fumarate linkers 57 (Figure ). Our synthesis method (Scheme 2) is a modified version of that used by Karmaker et al. Due to its water stability as well as the solubility of the linker, AlF can be synthesized using only distilled water as the solvent. Aqueous metal salt and fumaric acid solutions are mixed and heated at 90 °C on a hot plate for approximately 1 hour, during which time a white precipitate forms (Figure ). The MOF is then washed with ethanol and dried at 85 °C for 45 minutes. In addition to the environmentally friendly and safe synthesis protocol, only 2 hours are needed to prepare the activated (dry) material, important to accommodate the time constraints of a typical high school or undergraduate laboratory setting. Analysis by PXRD shows reasonable agreement between experimental data and that simulated from the crystallographic model (Figure ). We attribute the broader peaks in the experimental data to small crystallite size. The origin of the difference of 0.1° in 2θ in the lowest angle reflection is not clear, but does not substantially interfere with the materials' porosity or stability. N2 gas sorption analysis at 77 K after activation at 150 °C for 22 hours revealed the expected type I isotherm (Figure ). The BET surface area was determined to be 1091 m 2 /g, only slightly lower than the optimized value of 1156 m 2 /g obtained by Karmakar et al. Hence, the preparation of AlF described herein is an effective way to obtain this porous MOF for classroom experiments.