Strategies to generate larger pores in metal-organic frameworks

Due to the advantages such as large specific surface area, adjustable pore size and tunable functionality, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown great application potential in the fields of gas adsorption and separation, catalysis, sensing and biomedicine. However, most metal-organic frameworks have pore sizes below 2 nm and are typical microporous structures, which limits pore structure and hinders mass transfer within the framework. In order to overcome this limitation, researchers introduced mesopores or macropores in microporous MOFs to generate multi-level pore structure through various strategies.