Rational Synthesis of Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks from Preformed Rodlike Secondary Building Units

The lack of rational design methodologies to obtain chiral rod-based MOFs is a current synthetic limitation that hampers further expansion of MOF chemistry. Here we report a metalloligand design strategy consisting of the use, for the first time, of preformed 1D rodlike SBUs (1) for the rational preparation of a chiral 3D MOF (2) exhibiting a rare eta net topology. The encoded chiral information on the enantiopure ligand is efficiently transmitted first to the preformed helical 1D building block and, in a second stage, to the resulting chiral 3D MOF. These results open new routes for the rational design of chiral rod-based MOFs, expanding the scope of these unique porous materials.