title: Crystal engineering on superpolyhedral building blocks in metal-organic frameworks applied in gas adsorption.
abstract: Two metal-organic frameworks [PCN-426(Ni) and PCN-427(Cu)] have been designed and synthesized to investigate the structure predictability using a SBB (supermolecular building blocks) approach. Tetratopic ligands featuring 120° angular carboxylate moieties were coordinated with a [Ni3(μ3-O)] cluster and a [Cu2O2] unit, respectively. As topologically predicted, 4-connected networks with square coordination adopted the nbo net for the Ni-MOF and ssb net for the Cu-MOF. PCN-426(Ni) was augmented with 12-connected octahedral SBBs, while PCN-427(Cu) was constructed with tetragonal open channels. After a CO2 supercritical drying procedure, the PCN-426(Ni) possessed a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area as high as 3935 m(2) g(-1) and impressively high N2 uptake of 1500 cm(3) g(-1). This work demonstrates the generalization of the SBB strategy, finding an alternative to inconvenient synthetic processes to achieve the desired structural features.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Ying Pin
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77842, USA.
authors.forename: Tian Fu
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77842, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fordham
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
authors.forename: Hong Cai
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Zhou
keywords: gas adsorption; metal–organic frameworks; polyhedra; supermolecular building blocks