Porous carbon materials derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been brought into stage due to the intrinsic advantages of MOFs such as high porosity and tailorable structure diversity, which might provide infinite possibility in producing porous carbons with diverse structures and various decorations. Inherited from MOFs, the porosity in carbon materials is an important factor to evaluate the performances of porous carbons (e.g. gas sorption properties, electrochemical and catalytic behaviors). Factors that affect the porosity of porous carbon materials are mainly focused on the porosity of pristine MOFs, additives and conducting conditions. However, during past decades there were still no systematical reports on the influence factors of porosity in MOFs derived porous carbon materials and corresponding gas sorption properties. In this review, we will summarize the performances of MOF-derived carbon materials (i.e. non-doped porous carbons, heteroatoms doped porous carbons, metal/metal oxide decorated porous carbons) and give a detailed discussion about the connections between the properties and four major effects (calcination temperature, loading of additional precursor, post-synthetic treatment as well as intrinsic properties of MOFs).

Water pollution relating to human beings' health is a universal problem across community society. Highly efficient, economically feasible and easily achievable approaches are long-sought-after for water purification. Adsorption processes with porous materials (e.g. zeolites, activated carbon, silica gel, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs)) have drawn much attention in this field during past decades. In it, MOFs with numerous active sites, uniform porosity and tailorable structure diversity are arising to be one of the most promising adsorbents for water purification. During the adsorption processes, influence factors that determine or affect the usability and performances of MOFs are mainly focused on the stability of MOFs, their affinity for contaminants and the conducting conditions (pH, initial concentration of the contaminants). In this review, we will systematically present the performances of MOFs (mainly focused on MOF crystals, MOF nanomaterial or MOF composites will be beyond the scope of this review) for contaminants purification (inorganic and organic contaminants) in water and give a detailed discussion about the connection among their performances, conducting condition factors and potential interaction mechanisms (e.g. electrostatic interactions, coordination or p-p interaction). We hope this review will be beneficial to the design, regeneration and reuse of MOF adsorbents and promote the development of MOFs for water purification.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), with their well-defined pores and rich structural diversity and functionality, have drawn a great deal of attention from across the scientific community. However, industrial applications are hampered by their intrinsic fragility and poor processability. Stable and resilient MOF devices with tunable flexibility are highly desirable. Herein, we present a solvent- and binder-free approach for producing stable MOF coatings by a unique hot-pressing (HoP) method, in which temperature and pressure are applied simultaneously to facilitate the rapid growth of MOF nanocrystals onto desired substrates. This strategy was proven to be applicable to carboxylate-based, imidazolate-based, and mixed-metal MOFs. We further successfully obtained superhydrophobic and “Janus” MOF films through layer-by-layer pressing. This HoP method can be scaled up in the form of roll-to-roll production and may push MOFs into unexplored industrial applications.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), with their well-defined pores and rich structural diversity and functionality, have drawn a great deal of attention from across the scientific community. However, industrial applications are hampered by their intrinsic fragility and poor processability. Stable and resilient MOF devices with tunable flexibility are highly desirable. Herein, we present a solvent- and binder-free approach for producing stable MOF coatings by a unique hot-pressing (HoP) method, in which temperature and pressure are applied simultaneously to facilitate the rapid growth of MOF nanocrystals onto desired substrates. This strategy was proven to be applicable to carboxylate-based, imidazolate-based, and mixed-metal MOFs. We further successfully obtained superhydrophobic and “Janus” MOF films through layer-by-layer pressing. This HoP method can be scaled up in the form of roll-to-roll production and may push MOFs into unexplored industrial applications.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), as a class of microporous materials with well-defined channels and rich functionalities, hold great promise for various applications. Yet the formation and crystallization processes of various MOFs with distinct topology, connectivity, and properties remain largely unclear, and the control of such processes is rather challenging. Starting from a 0D Cu coordination polyhedron, MOP-1, we successfully unfolded it to give a new 1D-MOF by a single-crystal-to-single-crystal (SCSC) transformation process at room temperature as confirmed by SXRD. We also monitored the continuous transformation states by FTIR and PXRD. Cu MOFs with 2D and 3D networks were also obtained from this 1D-MOF by SCSC transformations. Furthermore, Cu MOFs with 0D, 1D, and 3D networks, MOP-1, 1D-MOF, and HKUST-1, show unique performances in the kinetics of the CH bond catalytic oxidation reaction.

Binary Pd–polyoxometalates [Pd(dpa)₂]₃[PW₁₂O₄₀]₂⋅12 DMSO (2), [Pd(dpa)₂]₃[PMo₁₂O₄₀]₂⋅12 DMSO⋅2 H₂O (3), and [Pd(dpa)(DMSO)₂]₂[HPMo₁₀V₂O₄₀]⋅4 DMSO (4) were synthesized by reaction of [Pd(dpa)(OAc)₂]⋅2 H₂O (1; dpa=2,2′-dipyridylamine) with three Keggin-type polyoxometalates and fully characterized by single-crystal and powder XRD analyses, IR spectroscopy, and elemental analyses. The synthesis is facile and straightforward, and the complicated ligand-modification procedure often used in the traditional charge-transfer method can be omitted. In 2–4, Pd complexes and polyoxometalate anions are coupled through electrostatic interaction. Compound 4 is more active than the other three compounds in the selective aerobic oxidation of alcohols at ambient pressure. Interestingly, during catalytic recycling of compound 4, unprecedented ternary Pd–V–polyoxometalate [Pd(dpa)₂{VO(DMSO)₅}₂][PMo₁₂O₄₀]₂⋅4 DMSO (5), which was captured and characterized by single-crystal XRD, proved to be the true active species and showed high catalytic activity for the selective aerobic oxidation of aromatic alcohols (98.1–99.8 % conversion, 91.5–99.1 % selectivity). Moreover, on the basis of control experiments and EPR and UV/Vis spectra, a plausible reaction mechanism for the oxidation of alcohols catalyzed by 5 was proposed.

Two new polyoxopalladates Na₂H₃[Pd₁₂(μ₃-SeO₃)₈(μ₄-O)₆(μ₃-O)₂Cr]·25H₂O (1) and Na₈H₇[Pd₁₂(μ₃-SeO₃)₈(μ₄-O)₈In]₃·24H₂O (2) have been synthesized by using Cr³⁺ and In³⁺ ions as structural directing agents. The two polyoxopalladates have been characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SXRD), FTIR and UV/Vis spectroscopy, elemental analysis (EA), ESI-MS, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Detailed SXRD analysis combined with the ESI-MS and a collision-induced dissociation (CID) fragmentation study shows that the coordination configurations of the central ions are different; this affects the stability and fragmentation mechanism of the clusters in the gas phase. This approach may help us to understand the dissociation chemistry and the catalysis mechanism of polyoxopalladates.

Invited for the cover of this issue is the group of Changwen Hu at the Beijing Institute of Technology, China. The cover image shows the most recent developments in the synthesis and study of the gas-phase fragmentation of new polyoxopalladates.