polyMOF Formation from Kinked Polymer Ligands via ortho-Substitution

Reticular chemistry is an important tool in the crystal engineering of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Isoreticular chemistry allows for the preparation of MOFs of the same topology from ligands with related geometries. In this work, reticular chemistry is used to explore the scope of polyMOFs, which are frameworks synthesized from polymer ligands. “Linked” ortho-substituted benzene dicarboxylate polymer ligands with varying length alkyl spacers were used to synthesize polyMOFs and elucidate the effects of polymer architecture on resulting crystal formation. It was found that these “kinked” polymer ligands were able to form polyIRMOF architectures, but did not readily form polyUiO-66 topologies.