Unusual preservation of polyhedral molecular building units in a metal-organic framework with evident desymmetrization in ligand design

A new porous metal-organic framework (MOF) with three types of preserved polyhedral molecular building units, all of which have been observed in a series of isostructural MOFs constructed from highly symmetrical hexacarboxylic ligands, was formed even from a pre-designed related tetracarboxylic ligand with drastically reduced symmetry.