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Updated: Feb 28, 2026

Author Spotlight: Experimental Approaches for the Synthesis of Low-Valent Metal-Organic Frameworks from Multitopic Phosphine Linkers
Published on: May 12, 2023
Phenanthroline-based metal-organic frameworks for Fe-catalyzed Csp-H amination
Nathan C Thacker1, Pengfei Ji, Zekai Lin
1Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, 929 East 57th, Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. wenbinlin@uchicago.edu.
Abstract:
We report here the synthesis of a robust and highly porous Fe-phenanthroline-based metal-organic framework (MOF) and its application in catalyzing challenging inter- and intramolecular C-H amination reactions. For the intermolecular amination reactions, a FeBr2-metalated MOF selectively functionalized secondary benzylic and allylic C-H bonds. The intramolecular amination reactions utilizing organic azides as the nitrene source required the reduction of the FeBr2-metalated MOF with NaBHEt3 to generate the active catalyst. For both reactions, Fe or Zr leaching was less than 0.1%, and MOFs could be recycled and reused with no loss in catalytic activity. Furthermore, MOF catalysts were significantly more active than the corresponding homogeneous analogs. This work demonstrates the great potential of MOFs in generating highly active, recyclable, and reusable earth abundant metal catalysts for challenging organic transformations.
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