Public Research Seminar by Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust, HKUST(GZ) - Engineering Metal-Organic Framework for Innovative Photoinduced Catalysis

Metal-organic framework (MOF) is a class of porous materials, providing an excellent platform for engineering heterogeneous catalysis. By taking advantage of the nature of MOFs, the first example of MOF-enabled heterogeneous thiyl-radical catalysis has been engineered, leading to outperformed HAT catalytic performance compared to homogeneous counterparts. The fast charge separation in MOF facilitates the formation of thiyl-radical catalyst. In addition, the high-local concentration of active centers and confinement effect in MOFs are discovered to promote the electron donor-acceptor (EDA) interaction. MOF-boosted heterogeneous EDA catalysis using MOF as the donor catalyst has been subsequently attained with superior catalytic performance. The crowded environment of MOF can also protect the active centers from being attacked by radical species.