Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) featuring chirality, stability, and function are of both fundamental and practical interest, but are yet challenging to achieve. Here we reported the metal-directed synthesis of two chiral COFs (CCOFs) by imine-condensations of enantiopure 1,2-diaminocyclohexane with C-symmetric trisalicylaldehydes having one or zero 3-tert-butyl group. Powder X-ray diffraction and modeling studies, together with pore size distribution analysis demonstrate that the Zn(salen)-based CCOFs possess a two-dimensional hexagonal grid network with AA stacking. Dramatic enhancement in the chemical stability toward acidic (1 M HCl) and basic (9 M NaOH) conditions was observed for the COF incorporated with tert-butyl groups on the pore walls compared to the nonalkylated analog. The Zn(salen) modules in the CCOFs allow for installing multivariate metals into the frameworks by postsynthetic metal exchange. The exchanged CCOFs maintain high crystallinity and porosity and can serve as efficient and recyclable heterogeneous catalysts for asymmetric cyanation of aldehydes, Diels-Alder reaction, alkene epoxidation, epoxide ring-opening, and related sequential reactions with up to 97% ee.

The search for versatile heterogeneous catalysts with multiple active sites for broad asymmetric transformations has long been of great interest, but it remains a formidable synthetic challenge. Here we demonstrate that multivariate metal-organic frameworks (MTV-MOFs) can be used as an excellent platform to engineer heterogeneous catalysts featuring multiple and cooperative active sites. An isostructural series of 2-fold interpenetrated MTV-MOFs that contain up to three different chiral metallosalen catalysts was constructed and used as efficient and recyclable heterogeneous catalysts for a variety of asymmetric sequential alkene epoxidation/epoxide ring-opening reactions. Interpenetration of the frameworks brings metallosalen units adjacent to each other, allowing cooperative activation, which results in improved efficiency and enantioselectivity over the sum of the individual parts. The fact that manipulation of molecular catalysts in MTV-MOFs can control the activities and selectivities would facilitate the design of novel multifunctional materials for enantioselective processes.

In this work, we demonstrate cooperative asymmetric catalysis by a metal−organic framework (MOF) as exemplified in the context of catalyzing cyanation of aldehydes with a VO(salen)-MOF, which after oxidation affords remarkably increased stereoselectivity (up to >99% ee) compared to the homogeneous VO(salen) counterpart as a result of the pairs of VO(salen) units in close proximity within its open channels. The cooperative asymmetric catalysis has been evidenced by the significantly decreased stereoselectivity and activity when one VO(salen) in such pairs of VO(salen) units is replaced with one Cu(salen), which results in blocking the VO−VO synergistic pathway while prompting unimolecular activation of substrates. The heterogeneous nature of VO(salen)-MOF has been verified by the fact that it can be easily recycled and reused without significant loss of catalytic activity and enantioselectivity, and its practical utility as asymmetric cyanation catalysist has been illustrated in the gram-scale synthesis of the antiviral natural products (R)-and (S)-enantiomers of tembamide. Our work therefore advances chiral MOF as an attractive platform for cooperative asymmetric catalysis in a variety of syntheses.

Two chiral porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) were constructed from [VO(salen)]-derived dicarboxylate and dipyridine bridging ligands. After oxidation of V(IV) to V(V) , they were found to be highly effective, recyclable, and reusable heterogeneous catalysts for the asymmetric cyanosilylation of aldehydes with up to 95 % ee. Solvent-assisted linker exchange (SALE) treatment of the pillared-layer MOF with [Cr(salen)Cl]- or [Al(salen)Cl]-derived dipyridine ligands led to the formation of mixed-linker metallosalen-based frameworks and incorporation of [Cr(salen)] enabled its use as a heterogeneous catalyst in the asymmetric epoxide ring-opening reaction.

Background: Recent studies have validated and confirmed the great potential of nanoscale metal-organic framework (NMOF) in the biomedical field, especially in improving the efficiency of cancer diagnosis and therapy. However, most previous studies only utilized either the metal cluster or the organic ligand of the NMOF for cancer treatments and merely reported limited theranostic functions, which may not be optimized. As a highly designable and easily functionalized material, prospective rational design offers a powerful way to extract the maximum benefit from NMOF for cancer theranostic applications. Materials and Methods: A NMOF based on hafnium (Hf) cluster and Mn(III)-porphyrin ligand was rational designed and synthesized as a high-performance multifunctional theranostic agent. The folic acid (FA) was modified on the NMOF surface to enhance the cancer targeting efficacy. The proposed "all-in-one" FA-Hf-Mn-NMOF (fHMNM) was characterized and identified using various analytical techniques. Then, in vitro and in vivo studies were performed to further explore the effects of fHMNM both as the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)/computed tomography (CT)/photoacoustic imaging (PAI) contrast agent and as the photothermal therapy (PTT)/radiotherapy (RT) agent. Results: A tumour targeting multifunctional fHMNM was successfully synthesized with high performance for MRI/CT/PAI enhancements and image-guided PTT/RT synergistic therapy properties. Compared with the current clinical CT and MR contrast agents, the X-ray attenuation and T 1 relaxation rate of this integrated nanosystem increased 1.7-fold and 3-5-fold, respectively. More importantly, the catalase-like Mn(III)-porphyrin ligand can decompose H 2 O 2 into O 2 in tumour microenvironments to improve the synergistic treatment efficiency of PTT and RT. Significant tumour growth inhibition was achieved in mouse cancer models without obvious damage to the other organs. Conclusion: This work highlights the potential of fHMNM as an easily designable material for biomedical applications, could be an effective tool for in vivo detection and subsequent treatment of tumour.