Salicylaldimine-Based Metal–Organic Framework Enabling Highly Active Olefin Hydrogenation with Iron and Cobalt Catalysts

A robust
and porous Zr metal–organic framework, sal-MOF,
of UiO topology was synthesized using a salicylaldimine (sal)-derived
dicarboxylate bridging ligand. Postsynthetic metalation of sal-MOF
with iron­(II) or cobalt­(II) chloride followed by treatment with NaBEt3H in THF resulted in Fe- and Co-functionalized MOFs (sal-M-MOF,
M = Fe, Co) which are highly active solid catalysts for alkene hydrogenation.
Impressively, sal-Fe-MOF displayed very high turnover numbers of up
to 145000 and was recycled and reused more than 15 times. This work
highlights the unique opportunity of developing MOF-based earth-abundant
catalysts for sustainable chemical synthesis.