High-Nuclearity Polyoxometalate-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks for Photocatalytic Oxidative Cleavage of C-C Bond

High-nuclearity polyoxometalate (POM) clusters are attractive building blocks (BBs) for the synthesis of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) due to their high connectivity and inherently multiple metal centers as functional sites. This work demonstrates a strategy of step-wise growth on ring-shaped [P8W48O184]40- precursor, which produced two new high-nuclearity polyoxotungstates, a half-closed [H16P8W58O218]32- {W58} and a fully-closed [H16P8W64O236]32- {W64}. By in situ synthesis, unique MOFs of copper triazole-benzoic acid (HL) complexes incorporating the negatively-charged {W58} and {W64} as nodes, {Cu11(HL)9W58} HNPOMOF-1 and {Cu9(HL)9W64} HNPOMOF-2, were constructed by delicately tuning the reaction conditions, mainly solution pH, which controls the formation of {W58} and {W64}, and at the same time the protonation of triazole-benzoic acid ligand thus its coordination mode to copper ion that creates the highest nuclearity POM-derived MOFs reported to date. HNPOMOF-1 features 3D framework possessing cage-like cavities filled with exposed carboxyl groups, while the inherent 2D layer-like HNPOMOF-2 allows for facile exfoliation into ultrathin nanosheets, and the resulted HNPOMOF-2NS exhibits superior activity towards photocatalytic oxidative cleavage of C-C bond for a series of lignin models. This work not only provides a strategy to build high-nuclearity POM cluster-based frameworks, but also demonstrates their great potential as functional materials for green catalysis.