With H2 O or NH3 stimuli, the blue cobalt-based metal-organic framework (MOF) BP can reversibly transform to red RP. The removal/recovery of terephthalate ligands accompanied by the transformation leads to a gate effect, which allows the encapsulation and release of small solvent molecules under certain conditions. This is the first example of topology transformation from a self-penetrating to interpenetrating net in 3D MOFs.

The separation of n‐alkanes from their branched isomers is vitally important to improve octane rating of gasoline. To facilitate mass transfer, adsorptive separation is usually operated under high temperatures in industry, which require considerable energy. Herein, we present a kind of dynamic pillar‐layered MOF that exhibits self‐adjustable structure and pore space, a behavior induced by guest molecules. A combination of the flexibility of the framework with the commensurate adsorption for n‐hexane results in exceptional performance in separating hexane isomers. More significantly, lower temperature prompts the guest molecules to open the dynamic pores, which may provide a new perspective for optimized separation performance at lower temperatures with less energy consumption.

The selective adsorption and separation of C2 hydrocarbons have been achieved in a “flexible-robust” MOF based on a guest-dependent gate-opening effect.

A series of porous pillar-layer frameworks have been prepared with 1,3,5-tris(p-imidazolylphenyl)benzene (tipb) as the main ligand and dicarboxylic acids as coligands. Our studies have demonstrated that tipb is prone to form a 6 3 layer with targeted metal ions, which could be utilized to construct pillar-layer frameworks. The structure and porous properties of the resulting metal−organic frameworks could be tuned by modifying the size, geometry, and functional groups of the coligands (pillars). Moreover, gas adsorption measurements revealed that both complexes 1 and 2 exhibit selective adsorption of H 2 over N 2 for the pore-size effect.