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Seemingly non-porous organic solids have the ability for guest transport and have also been shown to absorb gases, including hydrogen, methane and acetylene, to varied extents. These materials also show potential for gas separation technology, display remarkable water transport through hydrophobic crystals, and clearly show that molecules within crystals are capable of cooperating with guests as they move through non-porous environments. This work is presented within a broader topic which also encompasses crystal engineering and (microporous) metal-organic frameworks (MOF's).

A breathing 2-fold interpenetrated microporous metal-organic framework was synthesized with a flexible tetrahedral organic linker and Zn(2) clusters that sorb CO(2) preferably over N(2) and H(2).

We have successfully synthesized a single crystalline porphyrinic titanium MOF, namely PCN-22. PCN-22 represents an important step towards mimicking dye sensitized TiO2 in MOFs.

Organic solids composed by weak van der Waals forces are attracting considerable attention owing to their potential applications in gas storage, separation and sensor applications. Herein we report a gas-induced transformation that remarkably converts the high-density guest-free form of a well-known organic host (p-tert-butylcalix[4]arene) to a low-density form and vice versa, a process that would be expected to involve surmounting a considerable energy barrier. This transformation occurs despite the fact that the high-density form is devoid of channels or pores. Gas molecules seem to diffuse through the non-porous solid into small lattice voids, and initiate the transition to the low-density kinetic form with approximately 10% expansion of the crystalline organic lattice, which corresponds to absorption of CO2 and N2O (refs 4,5). This suggests the possibility of a more general phenomenon that can be exploited to find more porous materials from non-porous organic and metal-organic frameworks that possess void space large enough to accommodate the gas molecules.

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The use of methylene-bridged calix[4]arenes in 3d/4f chemistry produces a family of clusters of general formula [Mn(III)(4)Ln(III)(4)(OH)(4)(C4)(4)(NO(3))(2)(DMF)(6)(H(2)O)(6)](OH)(2) (where C4 = calix[4]arene; Ln = Gd (1), Tb (2), Dy (3)). The molecular structure describes a square of Ln(III) ions housed within a square of Mn(III) ions. Magnetic studies reveal that 1 has a large number of molecular spin states that are populated even at the lowest investigated temperatures, while the ferromagnetic limit S = 22 is being approached only at the highest applied fields. This, combined with the high magnetic isotropy, makes the complex an excellent magnetic refrigerant for low-temperature applications. Replacement of the isotropic Gd(III) ions with the anisotropic Tb(III) and Dy(III) ions "switches" the magnetic properties of the cluster so that 2 and 3 behave as low-temperature molecular magnets, displaying slow relaxation of the magnetization.