Entangled porous coordination frameworks, wherein two or more distinct frameworks are catenated over an entire crystal, are known to demonstrate unique structural flexibilities in response to the accommodation of molecules in the voids between the frameworks. In this highlight review, we introduce key functions of entangled frameworks based on two principles of their dynamic features: shearing and displacement. We further describe strategies to control the flexibilities; one is a molecular chemistry approach to functionalize frameworks by chemical modification, and the other is a mesoscopic chemistry approach to change the physical form, in particular, the crystal size.
Ç IntroductionPorous coordination polymers (PCPs) or metalorganic frameworks (MOFs) with three-dimensional (3D) molecular skeleton constructed from organic struts and inorganic nodes are an intriguing class of porous crystalline materials with potential applications in gas storage, separation, catalysis, and sensing.
1These porous properties can be modulated simply by altering the chemical functionalities on the organic struts. Structural flexibility is one of the most characteristic structural features of PCPs, which differentiate among other porous materials. Here, extended frameworks optimize, while maintaining the crystallinity, their structures in response to the incorporation or removal of molecules in the pores. This phenomenon was first anticipated in 1998 and classified as the third generation of PCPs.2 Recently this type of flexible PCPs is defined as soft porous crystals.3 Such structural dynamics originate from either local flexibilities of molecular components, such as intrinsic ligand flexibility and dynamics of coordination environments around metal ions, or global cooperative framework deformations at the scale of crystal domains.Frameworks with periodic interpenetration, 4 wherein two or more distinct frameworks are entangled over an entire crystal, are a good system into which to induce global structural transformation. Entangled frameworks are often spontaneously formed by the elongation of organic spokes in the framework matrices because frameworks prefer to fill the voids by selfcatenation rather than to maintain the large voids therein. The researchers in the field of PCPs and MOFs have, therefore, tried to suppress catenation because the interpenetration generally decreases the pore size and the surface area. In order to avoid the self-catenation, several strategies have been demonstrated such as liquid-phase epitaxy, 5 template method in synthetic solution, 6 rational design of organic linkers, 7 or modification of the synthetic condition of PCPs.8 In contrast to this research direction to obtain the larger pore size, a number of studies have demonstrated that entangled frameworks are not quite so bad as once thought, especially thanks to their unique structural dynamics.
9Entangled frameworks generally exhibit two types of dynamic structural transformations, shearing and displacement. Structural dynamics of ent...