Four porous coordination networks have been synthesized from 1,4-benzenedicarboxylate with Cl, Br, I, and NO2 substituents whose different spatial differences are sufficient to influence the coordination mode of adjacent carboxyl moieties to unlock an inter-penetrating framework to give isostructural structures. Their size and polarity differences account for the diverging CO2 adsorption performances.
Keywords: CO2 adsorption; coordination frameworks; gas separation; steric hindrance.
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