Chemistry of porous coordination polymers having multimodal nanospace and their multimodal functionality

Remarkable advances in the recent development of porous coordination polymers (PCPs) or metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have paved the way toward functional chemistry having potential application such as molecular storage, separation, and catalysis. Moreover flexible PCPs, which are structurally transformable depending upon guest molecules adsorption/desorption, have received much attention because they provide unique properties, dissimilar to those of zeolites. PCPs can be categorized into structurally monomodal and multimodal classes. Monomodal PCPs possess single uniform pores in the framework. In contrast, multimodal PCPs have more than two types of pores in the framework. Interpenetrated PCPs can possess more than two types of pores with different sizes and shapes in the same framework depending on relative position of individual motifs, resulting in multimodal PCPs. Moreover, interpenetrated PCPs have several advantages, such as high thermal stability, flexibility, and ultramicropore for effective adsorption. In this review, chemistry of PCPs based on monomodal and multimodal PCPs are summarized and discussed.