Using small building blocks to assemble ultra-complex, multifaceted metal-organic frameworks with zeolitic, mesoporous subnetwork

The assembly of ultra -complex structures from simple building units remains a long-term challenge in chemistry. Using small molecular building blocks (MBBs) in a mixed-ligand approach permitted the assembly of unprecedented metal -organic frameworks (MOFs), M-kum-MOF-1 (M = Y, Tb), exhibiting extra -large mesoporous cavities with small access windows. The ultra -complex cage of M-kum- MOF-1 consists of 240 vertices bridged by 432 edges, leading to a 194 faces -containing tile. This tile exhibits more faces than in any periodic structures (zeolites, MOFs, metal -organic polyhedra [MOPs], etc.) known to date. M-kum-MOF-1 not only possess zeolitic features (anionic framework), but they also contain an underlying wse zeolitic topology, which is observed for the first time.