Phase transfer-driven formation of solid metal-organic materials with tunable optical and adsorption properties.

Precise control of the physicochemical properties of metal-organic materials has been a challenge in the fields of materials science and engineering and can be achieved through the construction of morphology/size-dependent supramolecular functional model systems. The development of diverse hierarchical micro/nanostructured systems based on similar molecules and the elucidation of their morphology-dependent characteristics provide the possibility for efficiently constructing this system and studying its structure-function relationships. Herein, three pyrene-based metal-organic cycles (MOCs) were synthesized and used as building blocks to create supramolecular model systems and investigate their morphology/size-dependent properties. Changes in the substituents or coordination sites at the molecular level can greatly influence the assembly behavior of metallacycles, further generate entities, including MOC-based secondary structures such as polyhedrons and nanorods, associated with MOC-based tertiary structures of nanorod/nanoribbon clusters. In turn, the optical properties and specific surface area of materials can be finely regulated.