Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are emerging as sustainable reagents and catalysts with promising applications in synthetic chemistry. Although the hydrothermal stabilities of MOFs have been well studied, their robustness toward various reagents, including acids, bases, nucleophiles, electrophiles, oxidants, and reductants, remains poorly characterized. As such, heterogeneous platforms for promising catalysts are generally identified on an ad hoc basis and have largely been limited to carboxylate frameworks to date. To address these limitations, here we systematically characterize the robustness of 17 representative carboxylate, salicylate, and azolate MOFs toward 30 conditions representing the scope of synthetic organic chemistry. Specifically, analysis of the full width at half-maximum of powder X-ray diffraction patterns, as well as infrared spectroscopy, 77 K N2 adsorption measurements, and scanning electron microscopy in select cases are employed to appraise framework degradation and dissolution under a range of representative conditions. Our studies demonstrate that azolate MOFs, such as Fe2(bdp)3 (bdp2– = 4,4′-(1,4-phenylene)­bis­(pyrazolate)), generally possess excellent chemical stabilities under myriad conditions. In addition, we find that carboxylate and salicylate frameworks possess complementary stabilities, with carboxylate MOFs possessing superior robustness toward acids, electrophiles, and oxidants, and salicylate MOFs demonstrating improved robustness toward bases, nucleophiles, and reductants. The guidelines provided herein should facilitate the rational design of robust frameworks for applications in synthetic chemistry and guide the development of new strategies for the postsynthetic modification of MOFs as well.

ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) were synthesized through surfactant free non-hydrolytic organic phase method in which zinc acetate and zinc acetylacetonate were selected as precursors. Structural and size analysis of the as-prepared nanoparticles performed on X-ray diffractometer, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed that the obtained nanoparticles were crystalline particles with all reflections matching to wurtzite. TEM images revealed that ZnO NPs from synthesis in which zinc acetate involved as precursor had a shape of sphere while zinc acetylacetonate resulted in rod-shaped nanoparticles. Reaction rates from catalytic activity test performed on Methylene Blue dye (MB) were found to be 2.99×10-2 min-1 and 1.98×10-2 min-1 for spherical and rod-shaped ZnO NPs, respectively. Antibacterial activity experiments shows rod-shaped ZnO NPs almost completely (99.75%) inhibited the growth of Escherichia Coli while only around 6.5% was survived after treatment of spherical ZnO NPs under same conditions.