Unraveling the Role of Structural Dynamism in Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF) for Excited-State Intramolecular Proton Transfer (ESIPT) Driven Water Sensing
Arijit Halder, Anupam Maiti, Susanta Dinda, Biswajit Bhattacharya, Debajyoti Ghoshal
Abstract
Ligand based modification has been performed to synthesize a pair of mixed ligands d10 MOF based materials related to a previously published compound as a base material. The previous compound was a Zn(II)-MOF, {[Zn(4-bpdh)(H2dht)]·(MeOH)(H2O)}n (1) [N,N′-bis(1-pyridin-4-yl-ethylidene)hydrazine = 4-bpdh and 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalic acid = H4dht], which is a five-fold interpenetrated framework and highly dynamic in nature. In the first synthetic modification, the central metal is replaced by Cd(II), which has the same framework formula as the base material, but this is a rigid compound and also there is no interpenetration in the framework. In the second modification, along with the metal center, the 4,4′-coordinating N,N′-donor ligand is replaced by an isomeric 3,3′-coordinating N,N′-donor linker. In this compound, the dynamism is regenerated. The dynamic nature can be realized by the extensive PXRD studies and characteristic “step-shaped” gas/solvent adsorption behavior for CO2, water, and ethanol. Furthermore, all these 3D MOFs show excited-state intramolecular proton transfer phenomena and water sensing properties in different organic solvents. Here excitingly, the ease of water sensing property is directly related to the dynamic behavior of the framework which has been studied thoroughly in terms of structural correlation.