Bifunctional Metal-Organic Layers for Tandem Catalytic Transformations Using Molecular Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide

Tandem catalytic reactions improve atom- and step-economy over traditional synthesis but are limited by the incompatibility of the required catalysts. Herein, we report the design of bifunctional metal-organic layers (MOLs), HfOTf-Fe and HfOTf-Mn, consisting of triflate (OTf)-capped Hf-6 secondary building units (SBUs) as strong Lewis acidic centers and metalated TPY ligands as metal active sites for tandem catalytic transformations using O-2 and CO2 as coreactants. HfOTf-Fe effectively transforms hydrocarbons into cyanohydrins via tandem oxidation with O-2 and silylcyanation whereas HfOTf-Mn converts styrenes into styrene carbonates via tandem epoxidation and CO2 insertion. Density functional theory calculations revealed the involvement of a high-spin Fe-IV (S = 2) center in the challenging oxidation of the sp(3) C-H bond. This work highlights the potential of MOLs as a tunable platform to incorporate multiple catalysts for tandem transformations.