The Influence of Chemical Modification on Linker Rotational Dynamics in Metal–Organic Frameworks

The robust synthetic flexibility of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) offers a promising class of tailorable materials, for which the ability to tune specific physicochemical properties is highly desired. This is achievable only through a thorough description of the consequences for chemical manipulations both in structure and dynamics. Magic angle spinning solid‐state NMR spectroscopy offers many modalities in this pursuit, particularly for dynamic studies. Herein, we employ a separated‐local‐field NMR approach to show how specific intraframework chemical modifications to MOF UiO‐66 heavily modulate the dynamic evolution of the organic ring moiety over several orders of magnitude. Intraframework ring rotations in metal–organic frameworks have been sensitively detected by dipolar dephasing over the rotor period in magic angle spinning solid‐state NMR experiments. Information on the dynamics within MOFs is important, because the rate of rotational motions of linkers affects sorption and separation properties of MOFs.