Unlocking High Porosity: Post-Synthetic Solvothermal Treatment of Cu-Paddlewheel Based Metal-Organic Cages

Metal-organic cages (MOCs) have garnered significant attention due to their unique discrete structures, intrinsic porosity, designability, and tailorability. However, weak inter-cage interactions, such as van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonding can cause solid-state MOCs to lose structural integrity during desolvation, leading to the loss of porosity. In this work, a novel strategy to retain the permanent porosity of Cu-paddlewheel-based MOCs, enabling their use as heterogeneous catalysts is presented. Post-synthetic solvothermal treatments in non-coordinating solvents, mesitylene, and p-xylene, effectively preserve the packing structures of solvent-evacuated MOCs while preventing cage agglomeration. The resulting MOCs exhibit an exceptional N2 sorption capacity, with a high surface area (SBET = 1934 m2 g-1 for MOP-23), which is among the highest reported for porous MOCs. Intriguingly, while the solvothermal treatment reduced Cu(II) to Cu(I) in the Cu-paddlewheel clusters, the MOCs with mixed-valenced Cu(I)/Cu(II) maintained their crystallinity and permanent porosity. The catalytic activities of these MOCs are successfully examined in copper(I)-catalyzed hydrative amide synthesis, highlighting the prospect of MOCs as versatile reaction platforms. Metal-organic cages (MOCs) lost their structural integrity during desolvation due to weak inter-cage interactions, leading to a loss of porosity. To maintain the permanent porosity, a post-synthetic solvothermal treatment that strengthens the intermolecular interactions among the cages is developed. The solvothermal-treated MOCs retain their packing structures and prevent cage agglomeration, demonstrating an exceptional N2 sorption capacity.image