Most developments in the chemistry and applications of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been made possible thanks to the value of reticular chemistry in guiding the unlimited combination of ...organic connectors and secondary building units (SBUs) into targeted architectures. However, the development of new titanium-frameworks still remains limited by the difficulties in controlling the formation of persistent Ti-SBUs with predetermined directionality amenable to the isoreticular approach. Here we report the synthesis of a mesoporous Ti-MOF displaying a MIL-100 topology. MIL-100(Ti) combines excellent chemical stability and mesoporosity, intrinsic to this archetypical family of porous materials, with photoactive Ti
(μ
-O) metal-oxo clusters. By using high-throughput synthetic methodologies, we have confirmed that the formation of this SBU is thermodynamically favored as it is not strictly dependent on the metal precursor of choice and can be regarded as an adequate building block to control the design of new Ti-MOF architectures. We are confident that the addition of a mesoporous solid to the small number of crystalline, porous titanium-frameworks available will be a valuable asset to accelerate the development of new porous photocatalysts without the pore size limitations currently imposed by the microporous materials available.
Historically accessed through two-electron, anionic chemistry, ketones, alcohols, and amines are of foundational importance to the practice of organic synthesis. After placing this work in proper ...historical context, this Article reports the development, full scope, and a mechanistic picture for a strikingly different way of forging such functional groups. Thus, carboxylic acids, once converted to redox-active esters (RAEs), can be utilized as formally nucleophilic coupling partners with other carboxylic derivatives (to produce ketones), imines (to produce benzylic amines), or aldehydes (to produce alcohols). The reactions are uniformly mild, operationally simple, and, in the case of ketone synthesis, broad in scope (including several applications to the simplification of synthetic problems and to parallel synthesis). Finally, an extensive mechanistic study of the ketone synthesis is performed to trace the elementary steps of the catalytic cycle and provide the end-user with a clear and understandable rationale for the selectivity, role of additives, and underlying driving forces involved.
Phosphorus Incorporation (PI, abbreviated Π) reagents for the modular, scalable, and stereospecific synthesis of chiral phosphines and methylphosphonate nucleotides are reported. Synthesized from ...trans-limonene oxide, this reagent class displays an unexpected reactivity profile and enables access to chemical space distinct from that of the Phosphorus–Sulfur Incorporation reagents previously disclosed. Here, the adaptable phosphorus(V) scaffold enables sequential addition of carbon nucleophiles to produce a variety of enantiopure C–P building blocks. Addition of three carbon nucleophiles to Π, followed by stereospecific reduction, affords useful P-chiral phosphines; introduction instead of a single methyl group reveals the first stereospecific synthesis of methylphosphonate oligonucleotide precursors. While both Π enantiomers are available, only one isomer is requiredthe order of nucleophile addition controls the absolute stereochemistry of the final product through a unique enantiodivergent design.
The use of Metal–Organic Frameworks as crystalline matrices for the synthesis of multiple component or multivariate solids by the combination of different linkers into a single material has emerged ...as a versatile route to tailor the properties of single-component phases or even access new functions. This approach is particularly relevant for Zr6-MOFs due to the synthetic flexibility of this inorganic node. However, the majority of materials are isolated as polycrystalline solids, which are not ideal to decipher the spatial arrangement of parent and exchanged linkers for the formation of homogeneous structures or heterogeneous domains across the solid. Here we use high-throughput methodologies to optimize the synthesis of single crystals of UiO-68 and UiO-68-TZDC, a photoactive analogue based on a tetrazine dicarboxylic derivative. The analysis of the single linker phases reveals the necessity of combining both linkers to produce multivariate frameworks that combine efficient light sensitization, chemical stability, and porosity, all relevant to photocatalysis. We use solvent-assisted linker exchange reactions to produce a family of UiO-68-TZDC% binary frameworks, which respect the integrity and morphology of the original crystals. Our results suggest that the concentration of TZDC in solution and the reaction time control the distribution of this linker in the sibling crystals for a uniform mixture or the formation of core–shell domains. We also demonstrate how the possibility of generating an asymmetric distribution of both linkers has a negligible effect on the electronic structure and optical band gap of the solids but controls their performance for drastic changes in the photocatalytic activity toward proton or methyl viologen reduction.
Tunable hydrophobicity: Efficient air filters for the protection against chemical warfare agents might be achieved by surface functionalization of the pores in robust metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) ...with fluoroalkyl residues and the precise control of their pore size (see picture). These MOFs capture harmful volatile organic compounds even under extremely moist conditions (80 % relative humidity).
We report a new family of titanium–organic frameworks that enlarges the limited number of crystalline, porous materials available for this metal. They are chemically robust and can be prepared as ...single crystals at multi‐gram scale from multiple precursors. Their heterometallic structure enables engineering of their photoactivity by metal doping rather than by linker functionalization. Compared to other methodologies based on the post‐synthetic metallation of MOFs, our approach is well‐fitted for controlling the positioning of dopants at an atomic level to gain more precise control over the band‐gap and electronic properties of the porous solid. Changes in the band‐gap are also rationalized with computational modelling and experimentally confirmed by photocatalytic H2 production.
Metal doping in titanium MOFs: MUV‐10 are crystalline, porous titanium frameworks with excellent chemical stability in water. The presence of heterometallic clusters in the structure of the frameworks enables chemical engineering of the band‐gap by suitable doping with open shell metals rather than by linker functionalization. This observation is confirmed by computational modelling of the electronic structure of this family of solids.
The development of protective self-detoxifying materials is an important societal challenge to counteract risk of attacks employing highly toxic chemical warfare agents (CWAs). In this work, we have ...developed bifunctional zirconium metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) incorporating variable amounts of nucleophilic amino residues by means of formation of the mixed ligand Zr6O4(OH)4(bdc)6(1–x)(bdc-NH2)6x (UiO-66-xNH 2 ) and Zr6O4(OH)4(bpdc)6(1–x)(bpdc-(NH2)2)6x (UiO-67-x(NH 2 ) 2 ) systems where bdc = benzene-1,4-dicarboxylate; bdc-NH2= benzene-2-amino-1,4-dicarboxylate; bpdc = 4,4′-biphenyldicarboxylate; bpdc-(NH2)2 = 2,2′-diamino-4,4′-biphenyldicarboxylate and x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1. In a second step, the UiO-66-xNH 2 and UiO-67-x(NH 2 ) 2 systems have been postsynthetically modified by introduction of highly basic lithium tert-butoxide (LiO t Bu) on the oxohydroxometallic clusters of the mixed ligand MOFs to yield UiO-66-xNH 2 @LiO t Bu and UiO-67-x(NH 2 ) 2 @LiO t Bu materials. The results show that the combination of pre and postsynthetic modifications on these MOF series gives rise to fine-tuning of the catalytic activity toward the hydrolytic degradation of both simulants and real CWAs in unbuffered aqueous solutions. Indeed, UiO-66-0.25NH 2 @LiO t Bu is able to hydrolyze both CWAs simulants (diisopropylfluorophosphate (DIFP), 2-chloroethylethylsulfide (CEES), and real CWAs (soman (GD), sulfur mustard (HD)) quickly in aqueous solution. These results are related to a suitable combination of robustness, nucleophilicity, basicity, and accessibility to the porous framework.
Abstract
Photocatalysis process is a promising technology for environmental remediation. In the continuous search of new heterogeneous photocatalysts, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently ...emerged as a new type of photoactive materials for water remediation. Particularly, titanium-based MOFs (Ti-MOFs) are considered one of the most appealing subclass of MOFs due to their promising optoelectronic and photocatalytic properties, high chemical stability, and unique structural features. However, considering the limited information of the reported studies, it is a hard task to determine if real-world water treatment is attainable using Ti-MOF photocatalysts. In this paper, via a screening with several Ti-MOFs, we originally selected and described the potential of a Ti-MOF in the photodegradation of a mixture of relevant Emerging Organic Contaminants (EOCs) in real water. Initially, two challenging drugs (
i.e.
, the
β
-blocker atenolol (At) and the veterinary antibiotic sulfamethazine (SMT)) and four water stable and photoactive Ti-MOF structures have been rationally selected. From this initial screening, the mesoporous Ti-trimesate MIL-100(Ti) was chosen as the most promising photocatalyst, with higher At or SMT individual photodegradation (100% of At and SMT photodegradation in 2 and 4 h, respectively). Importantly, the safety of the formed by-products from the At and SMT photodegradation was confirmed. Finally, the At and SMT photodegradation capacity of MIL-100(Ti) was confirmed under realistic conditions, by using a mixture of contaminants in tap drinking water (100% of At and SMT photodegradation in 4 h), proven in addition its potential recyclability, which reinforces the potential of MIL-100(Ti) in water remediation.
Abstract
Changing the perception of defects as imperfections in crystalline frameworks into correlated domains amenable to chemical control and targeted design might offer opportunities for the ...design of porous materials with superior performance or distinctive behavior in catalysis, separation, storage, or guest recognition. From a chemical standpoint, the establishment of synthetic protocols adapted to control the generation and growth of correlated disorder is crucial to consider defect engineering a practicable route towards adjusting framework function. By using UiO-66 as experimental platform, we systematically explored the framework chemical space of the corresponding defective materials. Periodic disorder arising from controlled generation and growth of missing cluster vacancies can be chemically controlled by the relative concentration of linker and modulator, which has been used to isolate a crystallographically pure “disordered”
reo
phase. Cs-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy is used to proof the coexistence of correlated domains of missing linker and cluster vacancies, whose relative sizes are fixed by the linker concentration. The relative distribution of correlated disorder in the porosity and catalytic activity of the material reveals that, contrarily to the common belief, surpassing a certain defect concentration threshold can have a detrimental effect.
Research on metal-organic frameworks is shifting from the principles that control the assembly, structure, and porosity of these reticular solids, already established, into more sophisticated ...concepts that embrace chemical complexity as a tool for encoding their function or accessing new properties by exploiting the combination of different components (organic and inorganic) into these networks. The possibility of combining multiple linkers into a given network for multivariate solids with tunable properties dictated by the nature and distribution of the organic connectors across the solid has been well demonstrated. However, the combination of different metals remains still comparatively underexplored due to the difficulties in controlling the nucleation of heterometallic metal-oxo clusters during the assembly of the framework or the post-synthetic incorporation of metals with distinct chemistry. This possibility is even more challenging for titanium-organic frameworks due to the additional difficulties intrinsic to controlling the chemistry of titanium in solution. In this perspective article we provide an overview of the synthesis and advanced characterization of mixed-metal frameworks and emphasize the particularities of those based in titanium with particular focus on the use of additional metals to modify their function by controlling their reactivity in the solid state, tailoring their electronic structure and photocatalytic activity, enabling synergistic catalysis, directing the grafting of small molecules or even unlocking the formation of mixed oxides with stoichiometries not accessible to conventional routes.
Heterometallic cluster chemistry to control the function of titanium-organic frameworks.