Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) exhibit promising catalytic potentials towards many kinds of reactions owing to their designable metal-oxo clusters bridging organic linkers, modifiable structure and intrinsic porosities. Nevertheless, the catalytic performance of MOFs is still largely limited in respect of low catalytic efficiency, which mainly results from the obstruction of active metal sites by organic linkers. Ultrathinning 3D MOFs into 2D MOFs is an effective strategy to acquire high-performance catalysts.
Recently, Prof. ZHANG Jianling from Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators reported that CO₂ can act as a capping agent to control the oriented growth of MOF for synthesizing MOF nanosheets. This strategy produces MOF nanosheets with ultrathin thickness (~10 nm), ultra-small lateral size (~100 nm) and abundant unsaturated coordination metal sites on the surface of nanosheets. Owing to these unique features, the as-synthesized Cu(BDC) nanosheets exhibit greatly enhanced activity for catalyzing the oxidation reactions of alcohols as compared with 3D Cu(BDC). This metod provides an efficient stratage for the fabrication of other MOFs and MOF-based materials with desirable structures and functions.
This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission and Chinese Academy of Sciences. This work entitled “CO₂ controls the oriented growth of metal-organic framework with highly accessible active sites” was published in Nat. Commun. (2020, 11, 1431).

Structural characterizations of MOF nanosheets. (Image by Prof. ZHANG Jianling)

Contact:
Prof. ZHANG Jianling
Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences
E-mail: zhangjl@iccas.ac.cn