New URJC-1 Material with Remarkable Stability and Acid-Base Catalytic Properties

Pedro Leo; Fernando Martínez; Guillermo Calleja; David Briones; Lukasz Wojtas; Gisela Orcajo

doi:10.3390/polym8020044

New URJC-1 Material with Remarkable Stability and Acid-Base Catalytic Properties

Polymers (Basel). 2016 Feb 5;8(2):44. doi: 10.3390/polym8020044.

Authors

Pedro Leo¹, Fernando Martínez², Guillermo Calleja³, David Briones⁴, Lukasz Wojtas⁵, Gisela Orcajo⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Energy Technology, Chemical and Environmental Technology, Mechanical Technology and Analytical Chemistry, ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, c/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Spain. pedro.leo@urjc.es.
² Department of Chemical and Energy Technology, Chemical and Environmental Technology, Mechanical Technology and Analytical Chemistry, ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, c/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Spain. fernando.castillejo@urjc.es.
³ Department of Chemical and Energy Technology, Chemical and Environmental Technology, Mechanical Technology and Analytical Chemistry, ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, c/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Spain. guillermo.calleja@urjc.es.
⁴ Department of Chemical and Energy Technology, Chemical and Environmental Technology, Mechanical Technology and Analytical Chemistry, ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, c/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Spain. david.briones@urjc.es.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of South Florida, 4202 East Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620, USA. lwojtas@usf.edu.
⁶ Department of Chemical and Energy Technology, Chemical and Environmental Technology, Mechanical Technology and Analytical Chemistry, ESCET, Rey Juan Carlos University, c/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Spain. gisela.orcajo@urjc.es.

Abstract

Emerging new metal-organic structures with tunable physicochemical properties is an exciting research field for diverse applications. In this work, a novel metal-organic framework Cu(HIT)(DMF)_0.5, named URJC-1, with a three-dimensional non-interpenetrated utp topological network, has been synthesized. This material exhibits a microporous structure with unsaturated copper centers and imidazole⁻tetrazole linkages that provide accessible Lewis acid/base sites. These features make URJC-1 an exceptional candidate for catalytic application in acid and base reactions of interest in fine chemistry. The URJC-1 material also displays a noteworthy thermal and chemical stability in different organic solvents of different polarity and boiling water. Its catalytic activity was evaluated in acid-catalyzed Friedel⁻Crafts acylation of anisole with acetyl chloride and base-catalyzed Knoevenagel condensation of benzaldehyde with malononitrile. In both cases, URJC-1 material showed very good performance, better than other metal organic frameworks and conventional catalysts. In addition, a remarkable structural stability was proven after several consecutive reaction cycles.

Keywords: MOF; URJC-1; acid-basic properties; catalyst; stability.