Construction of Cu-based MOFs with enhanced hydrogenation performance by integrating open electropositive metal sites

Two new Cu-based MOFs have been effectively isolated and structurally characterized. Interestingly, it was found that the presence of an "open metal site" in compound 1 is able to effectively improve the catalytic hydrogenation performance, thus exhibiting 8-fold and 16-fold higher activity than compound 2 and CuO nanoparticles, respectively. In addition, compound 1 also displayed high thermal and water stability, and it could be reused more than eight times without an obvious decrease in activity, suggesting a way to enhance future catalysts with structural control. A kind of new Cu( ii )-MOF with open electropositive metal Cu sites exhibits excellent activity, selectivity and reusability in hydrogenation of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol under mild conditions (25 °C, 1 atm).