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IR and NMR spectroscopy were used to determine the silanol content in the most common mesoporous ordered silicas: MCM-41, MCM-48, SBA-15 and SBA-16. In addition, a spray dried MCM-41 and an ethene bridged PMO are investigated. The results are compared with a commercial chromatographic silica (Nucleosil). The complete distribution of surface and bulk silanols, and of isolated, geminal and vicinal silanols for all these materials is presented. A distinction is made between the total silanol number and the reachable or surface silanol content. The latter is determined by controlled reactions with simple silanes. All mesoporous ordered silicas, and especially the thick walled SBA-type materials and the PMO contain a surprisingly high amount of total silanol sites, albeit that up to 90% of these silanols are buried inside the walls and are not reachable for small silanes.

We use CheMPS2, our free open-source spin-adapted implementation of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) [Wouters et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 185, 1501(2014], to study the lowest singlet, triplet, and quintet states of the oxo-Mn(Salen) complex. We describe how an initial approximate DMRG calculation in a large active space around the Fermi level can be used to obtain a good set of starting orbitals for subsequent complete-active-space or DMRG self-consistent field (CASSCF or DMRG-SCF) calculations. This procedure mitigates the need for a localization procedure, followed by a manual selection of the active space. Per multiplicity, the same active space of 28 electrons in 22 orbitals (28e, 22o) is obtained with the 6-31G*, cc-pVDZ, and ANO-RCC-VDZP basis sets (the latter with DKH2 scalar relativistic corrections). Our calculations provide new insight into the electronic structure of the quintet.

An enantioselective catalyst, consisting of a chiral Mn(III)salen complex entrapped in the MIL-101 metal organic framework, is reported. For the first time, we assemble a robust MOF-cage around a chiral complex. The heterogeneous catalyst shows the same selectivity as the homogeneous complex and is fully recyclable. Theoretical calculations provide insight into this retention of selectivity.

A gallium 2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′-dicarboxylate metal–organic framework, Ga(OH)(bpydc), denoted as COMOC-4 (COMOC = Center for Ordered Materials, Organometallics and Catalysis, Ghent University) has been synthesized via solvothermal synthesis procedure. The structure has the topology of an aluminum 2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′-dicarboxylate – the so-called MOF-253. TEM and SEM micrographs show the COMOC-4 crystals are formed in nanoplates with uniform size of 30–50 nm. The UV–vis spectra of COMOC-4 in methanol solution show maximal electronic absorption at 307 nm. This results from linker to linker transitions as elucidated by time-dependent density functional theory simulations on the linker and COMOC-4 cluster models. When excited at 400 nm, COMOC-4 displays an emission band centered at 542 nm. Upon immersion in different solvents, the emission band for the framework is shifted in the range of 525–548 nm depending on the solvent. After incorporating Eu3+ cations, the emission band of the framework is shifted to even shorter wavelengths (505 nm). By varying the excitation wavelengths from 250 to 400 nm, we can fine-tune the emission from red to yellowish green in the CIE diagram. The luminescence behavior of Eu3+ cations is well preserved and the solid-state luminescence lifetimes of τ1 = 45 μs (35.4%) and τ2 = 162 μs (64.6%) are observed.