Although newly developing, the field of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has enthralled many in the sciences due to unmatched surface area/porosity, modularity, mild synthesis conditions, thermal stability, as well as seemingly limitless potential for applications (e.g., gas separations and storage, drug delivery). The preferential porous 3-periodic networks are typically constructed using inorganic components (i.e., transition metal ions, clusters, chains, etc.) connected by organic linkers, forming structures of periodic cages/cavities/pores that can contain, exchange, and encapsulate a variety of guests from small ions and gases to drug molecules to porphyrins, and even small proteins. Often 2-periodic (i.e., layered or sheet-like) structures have been overlooked for their lack of periodicity in the third dimension (and typical lack of permanent porosity), but recent developments in pillaring strategies offer potential for utilization of 2-periodic-based structures. Our research group is particularly interested in pillaring of supermolecular building layers (SBLs), specifically MOFs having honeycomb (hcb) topology, as a method of targeting porous 3-periodic MOFs. This design strategy allows for targeting a plethora of hexagonal pores sizes and pore functionalities, limited only by organic ligand design. Here we present a series of honeycomb and pillared-honeycomb structures based on trigonal ligands (commercial and synthesized) coordinated to trigonal metals/clusters with a variety of targeted ditopic ligands serving as pillars.

Pillaring classic honeycomb SBLs as a method to 3-periodic MOFs

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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