Ethenolysis as an on-purpose linker cleavage strategy for delamination of metal-organic frameworks
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a unique class of hybrid organic-inorganic materials that distinguish themselves with their highly porous crystalline structures, making them desirable for a variety of applications. The successful implementation of MOFs in various industries relies on the ability to precisely tailor their structures in a post-synthetic fashion. On-purpose cleavage of organic linkers has recently gained traction as one of the strategies for morphological tuning of MOFs due to its ability to deliver a range of desirable outcomes, such as their dimensional reduction or porosity enhancement. Although several classes of chemical transformations have been leveraged to date for that purpose, they all require harsh and/or aqueous reaction conditions that may be unsuitable for tuning of less stable MOFs. Herein, we establish ethenolysis reaction, a variant of iconic olefin metathesis, as a new tool for on-purpose cleavage of MOF linkers. In our prototypical study, we demonstrate that the ethenolysis of the three-dimensional pillared MOF, UofT-2, causes delamination of the material with decrease of the bulk crystallite thickness and evidence for formation of MOF nanosheets. Crucially, ethenolysis-driven linker cleavage proceeds under anhydrous/anoxic conditions and without the need of applying harsh reaction conditions.
Source: ChemRxiv
Institutions: University of Toronto, University of Toronto Scarborough
Language: English
Subfield: Inorganic Chemistry
Field: Chemistry
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204847498