A packaged toolbox with stabilization and functionalization strategies for robust and multifunctional metal–organic framework (MOF) materials has been summarized and discussed.
Sufficient pore size, appropriate stability, and hierarchical porosity are three prerequisites for open frameworks designed for drug delivery, enzyme immobilization, and catalysis involving large molecules. Herein, we report a powerful and general strategy, linker thermolysis, to construct ultrastable hierarchically porous metal-organic frameworks (HP-MOFs) with tunable pore size distribution. Linker instability, usually an undesirable trait of MOFs, was exploited to create mesopores by generating crystal defects throughout a microporous MOF crystal via thermolysis. The crystallinity and stability of HP-MOFs remain after thermolabile linkers are selectively removed from multivariate metal-organic frameworks (MTV-MOFs) through a decarboxylation process. A domain-based linker spatial distribution was found to be critical for creating hierarchical pores inside MTV-MOFs. Furthermore, linker thermolysis promotes the formation of ultrasmall metal oxide nanoparticles immobilized in an open framework that exhibits high catalytic activity for Lewis acid-catalyzed reactions. Most importantly, this work provides fresh insights into the connection between linker apportionment and vacancy distribution, which may shed light on probing the disordered linker apportionment in multivariate systems, a long-standing challenge in the study of MTV-MOFs.
This review summarizes recent developments of coordination cages catalysis across three key approaches: (1) cavity promoted reactions, (2) embedding of active sites in the structure of the cage, and (3) encapsulation of catalysts within the cage.
One of the emerging problems plaguing the chemical industry today is the efficient and costeffective separation of C 2 hydrocarbons. In order to help address this problem, we report a new material, NbU-1, constructed by extremely cheap starting materials. The special structural characteristics of NbU-1 such as the planar, mixed-valence copper clusters and Lewis-basic adsorption channels enforce interactions with acetylene molecules that lead to the highest kinetic separation efficiency for C 2 H 2 /C 2 H 4 . Via DFT-D calculations, it is indicated that C 2 H 2 molecules are adsorbed onto the two adjacent Cu(I) centers, but not the usual single open metal sites of Cu centers. The reported results not only provide information for a deep investigation into the separation mechanism but also offer an alternative strategy for preparing cost-effective materials that can perform highly efficient separations of light hydrocarbons.
Porosity and surface area analysis play a prominent role in modern materials science. At the heart of this sits the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory, which has been a remarkably successful contribution to the field of materials science. The BET method was developed in the 1930s for open surfaces but is now the most widely used metric for the estimation of surface areas of micro‐ and mesoporous materials. Despite its widespread use, the calculation of BET surface areas causes a spread in reported areas, resulting in reproducibility problems in both academia and industry. To prove this, for this analysis, 18 already‐measured raw adsorption isotherms were provided to sixty‐one labs, who were asked to calculate the corresponding BET areas. This round‐robin exercise resulted in a wide range of values. Here, the reproducibility of BET area determination from identical isotherms is demonstrated to be a largely ignored issue, raising critical concerns over the reliability of reported BET areas. To solve this major issue, a new computational approach to accurately and systematically determine the BET area of nanoporous materials is developed. The software, called “BET surface identification” (BETSI), expands on the well‐known Rouquerol criteria and makes an unambiguous BET area assignment possible.
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