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Updated: Feb 11, 2026

Development of Heterogeneous Enantioselective Catalysts using Chiral Metal-Organic Frameworks MOFs
Published on: January 17, 2020
Metal-Organic Frameworks as Catalyst Supports: Influence of Lattice Disorder on Metal Nanoparticle Formation
Miguel Rivera-Torrente1, Matthias Filez1, Rifan Hardian2
1Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, Universiteitsweg 99, 3584, CG, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Because of their high tunability and surface area, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) show great promise as supports for metal nanoparticles. Depending on the synthesis route, MOFs may contain defects. Here, we show that highly crystalline MIL-100(Fe) and disordered Basolite® F300, with identical iron 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate composition, exhibit very divergent properties when used as a support for Pd nanoparticle deposition. While MIL-100(Fe) shows a regular MTN-zeotype crystal structure with two types of cages, Basolite® F300 lacks long-range order beyond 8 Å and has a single-pore system. The medium-range configurational linker-node disorder in Basolite® F300 results in a reduced number of Lewis acid sites, yielding more hydrophobic surface properties compared to hydrophilic MIL-100(Fe). The hydrophilic/hydrophobic nature of MIL-100(Fe) and Basolite® F300 impacts the amount of Pd and particle size distribution of Pd nanoparticles deposited during colloidal synthesis and dry impregnation methods, respectively. It is suggested that polar (apolar) solvents/precursors attractively interact with hydrophilic (hydrophobic) MOF surfaces, allowing tools at hand to increase the level of control over, for example, the nanoparticle size distribution.
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