Two Porous Metal−Organic Frameworks Showing Different Behaviors to Sodium Cation

Two metal−organic frameworks (MOFs) with one-dimensional channels were successfully synthesized from the reactions of flexible paraffinic polycarboxylate with Zn(NO3)2 and CeCl3, respectively ({[Zn2(BTCA)]·5H2O}n (1) and {[CeNa(BTCA)(H2O)3]·4H2O}n (2), H4BTCA = 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid). With similar reaction conditions, reactions of the same organic ligand with different metals selected from different blocks (d-block and f-block) result in different coordination modes of carboxylate groups and final frameworks of 1 and 2. It is interesting that pores in 1 and 2 exhibit different behaviors to sodium cation, showing unique properties of MOFs based on flexible ligands.