Having access to clean water is a mandatory requirement for the proper development of living beings.

The development of catalysts able to assist industrially important chemical processes is a topic of high importance. In view of the catalytic capabilities of small metal clusters, research efforts are being focused on the synthesis of novel catalysts bearing such active sites. Here we report a heterogeneous catalyst consisting of Pd clusters with mixed-valence 0/+1 oxidation states, stabilized and homogeneously organized within the walls of a metal-organic framework (MOF). The resulting solid catalyst outperforms state-of-the-art metal catalysts in carbene-mediated reactions of diazoacetates, with high yields (>90%) and turnover numbers (up to 100,000). In addition, the MOF-supported Pd clusters retain their catalytic activity in repeated batch and flow reactions (>20 cycles). Our findings demonstrate how this synthetic approach may now instruct the future design of heterogeneous catalysts with advantageous reaction capabilities for other important processes.

A novel chiral 3D bioMOF exhibiting functional channels with thio-alkyl chains derived from the natural amino acid l-methionine (1) has been rationally prepared. The well-known strong affinity of gold for sulfur derivatives, together with the extremely high flexibility of the thioether "arms" decorating the channels, account for a selective capture of gold(III) and gold(I) salts in the presence of other metal cations typically found in electronic wastes. The X-ray single-crystal structures of the different gold adsorbates Au(III)@1 and Au(I)@1 suggest that the selective metal capture occurs in a metal ion recognition process somehow mimicking what happens in biological systems and protein receptors. Both Au(III)@1 and Au(I)@1 display high activity as heterogeneous catalyst for the hydroalkoxylation of alkynes, further expanding the application of these novel hybrid materials.

A robust and water-stable metal-organic framework (MOF), featuring hexagonal channels decorated with methionine residues (1), selectively captures toxic species such as CH3 Hg(+) and Hg(2+) from water. 1 exhibits the largest Hg(2+) uptake capacity ever reported for a MOF, decreasing the [Hg(2+) ] and [CH3 Hg(+) ] concentrations in potable water from highly hazardous 10 ppm to the much safer values of 6 and 27 ppb, respectively. Just like with biological systems, the high-performance metal capture also involves a molecular recognition process. Both CH3 Hg(+) and Hg(2+) are efficiently immobilized by specific conformations adopted by the flexible thioether "claws" decorating the pores of 1. This leads to very stable structural conformations reminiscent of those responsible for the biological activity of the enzyme mercury reductase (MR).

The gram-scale synthesis, stabilization, and characterization of well-defined ultrasmall subnanometric catalytic clusters on solids is a challenge. The chemical synthesis and X-ray snapshots of Pt clusters, homogenously distributed and densely packaged within the channels of a metal-organic framework, is presented. This hybrid material catalyzes efficiently, and even more importantly from an economic and environmental viewpoint, at low temperature (25 to 140 °C), energetically costly industrial reactions in the gas phase such as HCN production, CO methanation, and alkene hydrogenations. These results open the way for the design of precisely defined catalytically active ultrasmall metal clusters in solids for technically easier, cheaper, and dramatically less-dangerous industrial reactions.