Heterometallic metal-organic frameworks based on tris(dipyrrinato) coordination complexes.

A novel class of heterometallic metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has been synthesized and characterized. The MOFs rely on the use of tris(dipyrrinato) coordination complexes as the bridging structure and silver(I) ions as the linking unit. The building blocks and resulting MOFs have been structurally characterized by using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The modular nature of this approach is demonstrated by the use of both iron(III) and cobalt(III) complexes. The MOFs have strong electronic absorption features originating from the metal-dipyrrin chromophore and have continuous channels throughout the lattice that are occupied by ordered and disordered solvent molecules.