Understanding the interactions between the single components of hybrid systems is essential to drive the development of advanced functional materials. A prerequisite for this is the systematic variation of the building blocks of such compounds. Focusing on spiropyran@metal–organic framework (MOF) composite materials with noncovalently attached spiropyran dyes, both the host scaffold and the dye molecules can be systematically tuned. In this work, a broad substitution pattern was applied to systematically elucidate the characteristics of the resulting hybrid materials as a function of the supplemental substitution on spiropyran. The newly developed 12 composites exhibit substitution and host-dependent optical characteristics, which are particularly affected by the substitution of the 6′-position on the chromene ring. Through the favorable combination of the MOF host’s polarity and an adequate strength of the spiropyran’s indolinedonor–chromeneacceptor pair, reversible conversion between photoisomers is efficiently accomplished, especially for nitro-substituted spiropyrans inside MIL-68­(In).

The performance of different density functional tight binding (DFTB) methods for the description of six increasingly complex metal−organic framework (MOF) compounds have been assessed. In particular the self-consistent charge density functional tight binding (SCC DFTB) approach utilizing the 3ob and matsci parameter sets have been considered for a set of four Zn-based and two Al-based MOF systems. Moreover, the extended tight binding for geometries, frequencies, and noncovalent interactions (GFN2-xTB) approach has been considered as well. In addition to the application of energy minimizations of the respective unit cells, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations at constant temperature and pressure conditions (298.15 K, 1.013 bar) have been carried out to assess the performance of the different DFTB methods at nonzero thermal conditions. In order to obtain the XRD patterns from the MD simulations, a flexible workflow to obtain time-averaged XRD patterns from (in this study 5000) individual snapshots taken at regular intervals over the simulation trajectory has been applied. In addition, the comparison of pair-distribution functions (PDFs) directly accessible from the simulation data shows very good agreement with experimental reference data obtained via measurements employing synchrotron radiation in case of MOF-5. The comparison of the lattice constants and the associated X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns with the experimental reference data demonstrate, that the SCC DFTB approach provides a highly efficient and accurate description of the target systems.

Exploring synthesis methods fosters new ways to design materials in faster and cheaper ways. In this fundamental study, we present mechanochemical loading of photoactive dye molecules into porous metal-organic frameworks (= MOFs) as an alternative and promising strategy to form hybrid switch@-MOF systems. Six different spiropyrans were inserted into the two MOFs MOF-5 and MIL-68(In) in varying compositions. By this, the concentration-dependent enclosure characteristics were determined. This fast and simple synthesis strategy has never been reported so far, and thus provides completely new possibilities for the formation of two-or even multi-component systems.