Tailoring Lewis/Bronsted acid properties of MOF nodes via hydrothermal and solvothermal synthesis: simple approach with exceptional catalytic implications

[EN] The Lewis/Bronsted catalytic properties of the Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) nodes can be tuned by simply controlling the solvent employed in the synthetic procedure. In this work, we demonstrate that Hf-MOF-808 can be prepared from a material with a higher amount of Bronsted acid sites, via modulated hydrothermal synthesis, to a material with a higher proportion of unsaturated Hf Lewis acid sites, via modulated solvothermal synthesis. The Lewis/Bronsted acid properties of the resultant metallic clusters have been studied by different characterization techniques, including XAS, FTIR and NMR spectroscopies, combined with a DFT study. The different nature of the Hf-MOF-808 materials allows their application as selective catalysts in different target reactions requiring Lewis, Bronsted or Lewis-Bronsted acid pairs.