title: Hollow metal-organic framework nanospheres via emulsion-based interfacial synthesis and their application in size-selective catalysis.
abstract: Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) represent an emerging class of crystalline materials with well-defined pore structures and hold great potentials in a wide range of important applications. The functionality of MOFs can be further extended by integration with other functional materials, e.g., encapsulating metal nanoparticles, to form hybrid materials with novel properties. In spite of various synthetic approaches that have been developed recently, a facile method to prepare hierarchical hollow MOF nanostructures still remains a challenge. Here we describe a facile emulsion-based interfacial reaction method for the large-scale synthesis of hollow zeolitic imidazolate framework 8 (ZIF-8) nanospheres with controllable shell thickness. We further demonstrate that functional metal nanoparticles such as Pd nanocubes can be encapsulated during the emulsification process and used for heterogeneous catalysis. The inherently porous structure of ZIF-8 shells enables encapsulated catalysts to show size-selective hydrogenation reactions.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, §Department of Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, and ∥Department of Chemical Physics, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
authors.forename: Yufen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Fengwei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qihao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Yingli
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Huan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Yu-Zhen
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Huarong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Guoqing
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Junling
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Hai-Long
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Hangxun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
keywords: catalysis; emulsion; hollow nanostructures; interfacial reactions; metal−organic frameworks