Invisible Silver Guests Boost Order in a Framework That Cyclizes and Deposits Ag3Sb Nanodots

Shengxian Cheng; Yinger Xin; Jieying Hu; Weijin Feng; Dohyun Ahn; Matthias Zeller; Jun He; Zhengtao Xu

doi:10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c00012

Invisible Silver Guests Boost Order in a Framework That Cyclizes and Deposits Ag₃Sb Nanodots

Inorg Chem. 2021 Apr 19;60(8):5757-5763. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c00012. Epub 2021 Mar 31.

Authors

Shengxian Cheng¹, Yinger Xin¹, Jieying Hu^{2

3}, Weijin Feng¹, Dohyun Ahn¹, Matthias Zeller⁴, Jun He², Zhengtao Xu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
² School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China.
³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States.

PMID: 33787239
DOI: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.1c00012

Abstract

The infusion of metal guests into (i.e., metalating) the porous medium of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) is a topical approach to wide-ranging functionalization purposes. We report the notable interactions of AgSbF₆ guests with the designer MOF host ZrL1 [Zr₆O₄(OH)₇(L1)_4.5(H₂O)₄]. (1) The heavy-atom guests of AgSbF₆ induce order in the MOF host to allow the movable alkyne side arm to be fully located by X-ray diffraction, but they themselves curiously remain highly disordered and absent in the strucutral model. The enhanced order of the framework can be generally ascribed to interaction of the silver guests with the host alkyne and thioether functions, while the invisible heavy-atom guest represents a new phenomenon in the metalation of open framework materials. (2) The AgSbF₆ guests also participate in the thermocyclization of the vicinal alkyne units of the L1 linker (at 450 °C) and form the rare nanoparticle of Ag₃Sb supported on the concomitantly formed nanographene network. The resulted composite exhibits high electrical conductivity (1.0 S/cm) as well as useful, mitigated catalytic activity for selectively converting nitroarenes into the industrially important azo compounds, i.e., without overshooting to form the amine side products. The heterogeneous/cyclable catalysis entails only the cheap reducing reagents of NaBH₄, ethanol, and water, with yields being generally close to 90%.