Self-catalysed aerobic oxidization of organic linker in porous crystal for on-demand regulation of sorption behaviours

Control over the structure and property of synthetic materials is crucial for practical applications. Here we report a facile, green and controllable solid-gas reaction strategy for on-demand modification of porous coordination polymer. Copper(I) and a methylene-bridged bis-triazolate ligand are combined to construct a porous crystal consisting of both enzyme-like O-2-activation site and oxidizable organic substrate. Thermogravimetry, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, electron paramagnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy showed that the methylene groups can be oxidized by O-2/air even at room temperature via formation of the highly active Cu(II)-O-2(center dot)-intermediate, to form carbonyl groups with enhance rigidity and polarity, without destroying the copper(I) triazolate framework. Since the oxidation degree or reaction progress can be easily monitored by the change of sample weight, gas sorption property of the crystal can be continuously and drastically (up to 4 orders of magnitude) tuned to give very high and even invertible selectivity for CO2, CH4 and C2H6.