Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Metal Phosphonates as Recyclable Heterogeneous Catalysts

Successful incorporation of a suitable organic moiety in a porous inorganic metal phosphate network can not only make the corresponding organic-inorganic framework more flexible and robust, but it introduces more hydrophobicity at the surface of the resulting nanostructured material, which is highly desirable for their catalytic application in liquid-phase chemical transformations. Following the success of organic-inorganic hybrid mesoporous silicas, a wide range of analogous hybrid metal phosphonates have been designed. This has opened up a wide diversity of open framework porous nanomaterials, which show excellent catalytic activities in many organic transformations that are not possible with their corresponding inorganic counterparts. Here, we have summarized the recent developments in designing organic-inorganic hybrid porous metal phosphonates in this brief review with a special emphasis on their catalytic potential in liquid-phase organic transformations.