Reticular Rare-Earth Metal–Organic Frameworks with High Stability and Defective Sites: Post-Functionalization for Hydrogen Peroxide Detection

Rare-earth metal–organic frameworks (RE-MOFs), which are composed of polynuclear RE clusters of high connection, are gaining prominent attention in MOF chemistry, due to their tremendous structure diversity. The vulnerability of RE-MOFs to moisture and acid/alkaline conditions, however, has limited their modification and application. Herein, based on MOF reticular chemistry, we utilize a ditopic linker of distinct spatial configuration to construct a series of RE(III)-MOFs with bcu topology, BUT-47(M) (M = Tb3+, Y3+, Yb3+ and Tm3+; BUT = Beijing University of Technology), featuring the rare 8-connected RE6 clusters and defective sites. BUT-47(Tb) shows high chemical stability in a wide pH range (2–12). The functionalized BUT-47(Tb) through post-modification in the defective RE6 clusters demonstrates to be capable of selective fluorescence detection of hydrogen peroxide. This work not only highlights the strength of reticular chemistry principles in designing stable RE-MOFs with intriguing structures but also offers smart platforms to tailor properties for specific applications.