The role of photoinduced charge transfer for photocatalysis, photoelectrocatalysis and luminescence sensing in metal–organic frameworks

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising porous optoelectronic compositions for energy conversion and sensing applications. The enormous structural possibilities, the large variety of photo- and redox-active building blocks along with several post-synthetic functionalization strategies make MOFs an ideal platform for photochemical and photoelectrochemical developments. Because MOFs assemble all the active building units in a dense fashion, the non-aggregated yet proximally positioned species ensure efficient photon absorption to drive photoinduced charge transfer (PCT) reactions for energy conversion and sensing. Hence, understanding the PCT processes within MOFs as a function of the topological and electronic structures of the donor-acceptor (D-A) moieties can provide transformative strategies to design new low-density compositions.