Phthalocyanine‐Based Organometallic Nanocages: Properties and Gas Storage

Since the first report of the successful fabrication of a 2D single-layered graphene sheet by Novoselov et al. in 2004, tremendous effort has been devoted to the design and synthesis of other monolayers. Among them, phthalocyanine (Pc)based organometallic porous sheets have attracted extensive attention, which was stimulated by the recent success in synthesizing a Fe-atom-embedded phthalocyanine (poly-FePc) organometallic porous sheet by Abel et al. The advantages of such a system are that the metal atoms can be feasibly and flexibly manipulated so that they are uniformly and separately distributed within the substrate without clustering and that these structures display well-defined geometries and magnetic properties for potential applications in spintronics, hydrogen storage, and CO2 capture. [5] Furthermore, by rolling up a Pcbased sheet, a 1D organometallic nanotube can be formed with new characteristics for single-molecule sensors. Moreover, Pc-based 1D nanowire frameworks are a promising materials platform for applications in spintronics. However, up to now no study has been reported for Pc-based nanocages. This study is aimed at bridging this gap. It was found that the graphene sheet can not only form a carbon nanotube but that it can also form a fullerene cage. Following this logic as shown in Figure 1, we explored Pc-based nanocages with the following objectives: 1) To understand the electronic and optical properties. 2) To modulate the properties with different metal atoms. 3) To investigate the performance of gas adsorptions under ambient conditions.