Flexible Zirconium MOF as the Crystalline Sponge for Coordinative Alignment of Dicarboxylates

Because of their permanent porosity and unparalleled structural diversities, flexible metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are promising and highly desirable in host-guest chemistry. In this work, we employed a flexible Zr-MOF system, namely PCN-700 species, as the crystalline sponge for guest inclusion. A family of linear dicarboxylate ligands was adsorbed in the void space of PCN-700, which were subsequently confirmed by crystallographic observation. The stretching degree of the PCN-700 series was varied by means of dicarboxylate encapsulation through coordinative alignment.