In this Frontier Article recent progresses and challenges at the interface of metal–organic frameworks and dye-sensitized solar cells are highlighted and discussed.

A new anionic coordination complex of Zn(II) containing the highly pre-organized ligand 1,10phenanthroline-2,9-dicarboxylate (PDA), (H3O)2[Zn(PDA)2]•2CH3NO2•2H2O•(1), has been synthesized by solvothermal methods and characterised by elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The last of these techniques revealed a coordination sphere around Zn(II) consisting of four N atoms and four O donors from two 1,10phenanthroline-2,9-dicarboxylate ligands which features a distorted dodecahedral geometry. The ionic coordination motifs in 1 are held together by intermolecular O−H•••O, N−H•••O and C−H•••O hydrogen bonding, C−H•••π and π−π stacking interactions, to produce an extended 2D architecture.

In this manuscript we analysed the coordination complexes of zinc and manganese with pyridine-2,5-dicarboxylic acid N-oxide, focusing on the supramolecular assemblies and antiproliferative activities