The remarkable catalytic activity of the saturated metal organic framework MIL-47 in the epoxidation of cyclohexene is elucidated by means of both experimental results and theoretical calculations.Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are crystalline porous solids composed of a three-dimensional network of metal ions held in place by multidentate organic molecules. 1,2 Recently, the catalytic applications of MOFs have been reviewed by Hupp et al. and Farrusseng et al. 3,4 However, catalytic reaction mechanisms in metal organic frameworks and in particular at saturated coordinated centres are still poorly understood.In this study, we describe the high catalytic activity of a coordinative saturated V-MOF in the liquid phase oxidation of cyclohexene. The metal organic framework MIL-47 consists of a porous terephthalate framework built from infinite chains of V 4+ O 6 octahedra and has a three-dimensional orthorhombic structure that exhibits large pores. 5 Every structure unit in MIL-47 contains an O-V +IV -O bridge. The linkage of the V +IV to dicarboxylate groups of the terephthalate linkers results in an octahedral structure unit. Hence each vanadium(+IV) centre is saturated.The selective oxidation of cyclohexene is particularly interesting as it can yield, depending on the catalyst and the reaction conditions, several products as shown in Scheme 1. In this study, the reaction was carried out with tert-butyl hydroperoxide (70 wt% TBHP in water) as oxidant and chloroform as solvent. The internal standard used was 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene. The molar ratios were chloroform : cyclohexene : TBHP : 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene = 462 : 1 : 2 : 1. The reaction temperature was kept constant at 323 K. Samples were taken out from the reaction mixture at certain times and analyzed by gas chromatography. Next, MIL-47 was compared with a homogeneous vanadium catalyst vanadyl acetylacetonate VO(acac) 2 . Prior to the reaction, all the catalysts were dried under vacuum. Blank tests were performed without catalyst and no cyclohexene conversion was observed. Fig. 1 depicts the cyclohexene conversion and the detailed product distributions for MIL-47 and the homogeneous VO(acac) 2 catalyst. In both reactions, we used an identical amount of V-sites (0.4 mmol, 0.095 g MIL-47 and 0.106 g VO(acac) 2 ). The four main reaction products formed are cyclohexene oxide 2, cyclohexane-1,2-diol 3, tert-butyl-2-cyclohexenyl-1-peroxide 4 and 2-cyclohexen-1-one 5. From these figures it can be seen that the homogeneous catalyst VO(acac) 2 and the MIL-47 show high reaction rates for the conversion of cyclohexene. The initial turnover frequencies considered at the first 20 min are 57 h À1 and 43 h À1 for the VO(acac) 2 and the MIL-47 respectively. Both catalysts showed an almost linear conversion rate during the first 2 h of reaction and finally topped out at 60% conversion. The turnover numbers calculated at the end of the reaction were 62 and 68 for VO(acac) 2 and MIL-47 respectively. Moreover, considering the product distributions, truly interesting similaritie...