Size-selective epoxidation of olefins in two new metal-organic framework constructed from six-coordinated tetranuclear Cu(II) SBUs

Abstract Two metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) constructed from new six-coordinated tetranuclear Cu(II) secondary building units (SBUs) and 1-(3,5-dicarboxyphenyl)-2,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrrole-3,4-dicarboxylic acid (H 4 ppdc) ligands have been synthesized under solvothermal condition. Their similar, high density tetranuclear Cu(II) SBUs but different, well-defined microporous structures encourage us to contrastively study their catalytic behaviour for the epoxidation reaction of olefins using TBHP or molecular oxygen as oxidants. The results show that the two MOFs exhibit good size-selectivity for the epoxidation of different olefin substrates. The catalytic mechanism investigation indicates that the reaction process indeed proceeds via radical epoxidation.