Recent advances in porphyrinic metal–organic frameworks: materials design, synthetic strategies, and emerging applications

This highlight presents a review of porphyrin paddlewheel frameworks (PPFs) created using porphyrin metalloligands and paddlewheel secondary building units. The combination of these two components, along with dipyridyl pillaring linkers, results in the assembly of 25 PPFs. We describe the topology control exhibited in this series by considering the preferred coordination geometry of the porphyrin building blocks, the length and steric effects of the pillars, and the use of sequential self-assembly. These PPFs and related porphyrinic metal–organic frameworks are emerging as important materials for applications such as heterogeneous catalysis, gas storage, and light harvesting.