Reproducible Synthesis and High Porosity of mer-Zn(Im)₂ (ZIF-10): Exploitation of an Apparent Double-Eight Ring Template

Reproducible synthesis of the elusive merlinoite (mer) topology of zinc imidazolate (mer-Zn­(Im)2, or ZIF-10) has been achieved by employing a simple macrocyclic soluteMeMeCH2as a kinetic template. The corresponding phase-pure material, mer-MeMeCH2@Zn16(Im)32, is confirmed to be porous and exhibits one of the highest experimental surface areas (1893 m2/g, BET) yet reported for any ZIF. The X-ray single crystal structure of mer-MeMeCH2@Zn16(Im)32·xsolvent reveals the role of the macrocyle as an 8-fold hydrogen bond acceptor in templating the requisite double-eight rings (d8r) of the mer framework.