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Updated: Mar 1, 2026

Surface Functionalization of Metal-Organic Frameworks for Improved Moisture Resistance
Published on: September 5, 2018
Surface Modification of Two-Dimensional Metal-Organic Layers Creates Biomimetic Catalytic Microenvironments for
Wenjie Shi1, Lingyun Cao1, Hua Zhang1
1College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, iCHEM, PCOSS Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, China.
Abstract:
Microenvironments in enzymes play crucial roles in controlling the activities and selectivities of reaction centers. Herein we report the tuning of the catalytic microenvironments of metal-organic layers (MOLs), a two-dimensional version of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with thickness down to a monolayer, to control product selectivities. By modifying the secondary building units (SBUs) of MOLs with monocarboxylic acids, such as gluconic acid, we changed the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity around the active sites and fine-tuned the selectivity in photocatalytic oxidation of tetrahydrofuran (THF) to exclusively afford butyrolactone (BTL), likely a result of prolonging the residence time of reaction intermediates in the hydrophilic microenvironment of catalytic centers. Our work highlights new opportunities in using functional MOLs as highly tunable and selective two-dimensional catalytic materials.
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