Scientists in China have designed and prepared new heterogeneous catalysts based on the assembled metal–organic polyhedra to exhibit efficient base-type and acid-type catalytic performances at the same time.
New channel-like and cage-like porous materials have been prepared through the packing and stacking of the amide containing lanthanide-based octahedra Tb–PT1 and Sm–PT1 featuring both Lewis acidic Ln3+ sites and basic amide group sites. Their catalytic properties have been validated in cyanosilylation reactions and aldol reactions, in a size-selective fashion through base-type and acid-type catalysis sites, respectively.
These crystalline molecular materials hierarchically assembled from semi-infinite metal–organic polyhedra are thus expected to be useful catalysts which could combine the advantage of a heterogeneous catalyst and the excellent size discrimination properties of the polyhedra in solution.
Catalytic performance of lanthanide molecular solids containing well-modified metal–organic octahedra by Xiao Wu, Zhihua Lin, Cheng He and Chunying Duan; New J. Chem., 2012, Advance Article DOI: 10.1039/C1NJ20736A, Paper
Interested in reading further? Why not download the full article now, FREE to access for a period of 4 weeks!
