Improved hydrolytic robustness and catalytic performance of flexible lanthanide-based metal-organic frameworks: A matter of coordination environments

Abstract Due to the flexible structures and vulnerable coordination bonds, hydrolytic stability of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) is a critical issue for practical use. Besides the collapse of MOF structures by water intrusion, herein, we found that phase transformation among MOF isomers (viz., t-Ln-BTC, m-Ln-BTC, and c-Ln-BTC) can be triggered by water/organic solvent soaking. In isostructural Ln-BTC, different Ln cations (Ce3+, Y3+, or their combination) affected the hydrolytic robustness of the frameworks by altering the bonding strength of Ln-O. In addition, the Ln-BTC isomers can serve as host materials to immobilize Au Pd alloy nanoparticles for the catalytic benzyl alcohol oxidation reaction in aqueous solution, wherein, the catalytic performance increased in the order of m-Ln-BTC/Au-Pd