Probing the correlations between the defects in metal-organic frameworks and their catalytic activity by an epoxide ring-opening reaction.

Seven Zr/Hf-based MOFs with different degrees of defects were obtained by modulating the synthetic conditions. The number of missing linkers in these MOFs was calculated based on potentiometric acid-base titration. The number of defects was found to correlate quantitatively with the catalytic activity of UiO-type MOFs for an acid-catalyzed epoxide ring-opening reaction. More importantly, we were able to identify a MOF with inherent defective Zr6 nodes, which showed great activity and regio-selectivity for the epoxide ring-opening reaction.