Modular chemistry: Secondary building units as a basis for the design of highly porous and robust metal-organic carboxylate frameworks

Secondary building units (SBUs) are molecular complexes and cluster entitie s in which ligand coordination modes and metal coordination environments ca n be utilized in the transformation of these fragments into extended porous networks using polytopic Linkers (1,4-benzenedicarboxylate, 1,3,5,7-adaman tanetetracarboxylate, etc.). Consideration of the geometric acid chemical a ttributes of the SBUs and linkers leads to prediction of the framework topo logy, and in turn to the design and synthesis of a new class of porous mate rials with robust structures and high porosity.