Construction and investigation of chiral and photoluminescent Metal-Organic framework based on Zn(II) ions and achiral methoxy-functionalized benzimidazolate linkers

A Zn(II)-based metal-organic framework, namely MeOBim-Zn (1), has been prepared by the reaction between 5,6-dimethoxy-1H-benzo[d]imidazole (MeOBimH) and Zn(NO3)(2) in the presence of aqueous ammonia through solvothermal method and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, TGA and FT-IR. 1 exhibits a (10,3)-a chiral network constructing from achiral MeOBim- linker and Zn(II) ions via spontaneous resolution. In addition, 1 shows photoluminescent emission at 433 nm upon photoexcitation at 365 nm and this emission may originate from dissipation of metal-perturbed pi(MeOBim(-)) to pi*(MeOBim(-)) intraligand (IL) excited state.