Engineering channels of metal-organic frameworks to enhance catalytic selectivity

This report describes a facile strategy to enhance the catalytic selectivity by tuning the pore sizes of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in nanoparticles (NPs)/MOF composite catalysts. A general post-synthetic modification method was used to adjust the pore sizes of MOFs by using anhydrides with different chain lengths to react with amino groups in the ligands. The modified NPs/MOF catalysts exhibited enhanced size selectivity performance in the hydrogenation of olefins, which revealed the flexibility of MOFs as supporting materials for heterogeneous catalysis.