A Rare Flexible Metal-Organic Framework Based on a Tailorable Mn₈ -Cluster Showing Smart Responsiveness to Aromatic Guests and Capacity for Gas Separation

The design and creation of soft porous crystals combining regularity and flexibility may promote potential applications for gas storage and separation due to their deformable framework's responsiveness to external stimuli. The flexibility of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) relies on alterable degrees of freedom that are mainly provided by organic linkers or the junctions linking organic and inorganic building units. Herein, we report a new dynamic MOF whose flexibility originates from an unprecedented tailorable Mn₈ O₃₈ -cluster and shows simultaneous coordination geometry changes and ligand migration that are reversibly driven by guest exchange. This provides an extra degree of freedom to the framework's deformation, resulting in three-dimensional variations in the framework that subtly respond to varied aromatic molecules. The gas adsorption behavior of this flexible MOF was evaluated, and the selective separation of light hydrocarbons and Freon gases is achieved.