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On the way toward a sustainable low-carbon future, in addition to physical capture and permanent underground deposition of anthropogenic emitted CO 2, an alternative and very attractive way should be carbon fixation via catalytic chemical conversion of CO 2 into value-added chemicals and reusable materials. A metal–organic framework (MOF) incorporating accessible nitrogen-rich groups and unsaturated metal sites was successfully constructed via solvothermal assembly of an acylamide-containing tetracarboxylate ligand and Cu(II) ions. Characterizations including structural analysis, gas adsorption, and Raman spectral detection were carried out to reveal that the MOF presents not only a high porosity with exposed Lewis acid metal sites but also a high CO 2 -adsorbing capability. Such inherent structural features make the MOF a highly promising candidate as a heterogeneous catalyst for CO 2 chemical conversion, which was confirmed by its high efficiency on the CO 2 cycloaddition with small-sized epoxides. Due to the size control of the open porous windows, catalytic activity of the MOF shows a sharp difference between small and large epoxides. Remarkably high efficiency and size selectivity on CO 2 catalytic conversion enable the MOF to be an advanced heterogeneous catalyst for carbon fixation.
Li et al. (Mon,) studied this question.