Functionalizing the Defects: Postsynthetic Ligand Exchange in the Metal Organic Framework UiO-66

Herein, we explore the possibility of functionalizing UiO-66 with the monoethanolamine (MEA) moiety. Several unsuccessful routes are discussed before we show that it can be achieved via a 2 stage post synthetic ligand exchange (PSE) reaction with a highly defective UiO-66 sample. The intermediate material is the most porous UiO-66 sample ever reported. We expect that this novel approach will allow many other functional moieties to be introduced.