Non-, micro-, and mesoporous metal-organic framework isomers: reversible transformation, fluorescence sensing, and large molecule separation.

For the first time, three novel metal-organic framework (MOF) isomers with hierarchical channel sizes of nonpore or micropore or mesopore were successfully prepared by simply controlling the amounts of solvent or/and reaction temperatures/time. Strikingly, we have demonstrated the reversible transformation between the microporous and mesoporous MOFs triggered by solvent or/and temperature perturbation. The desolvated microporous MOF has been evaluated to be a promising luminescent probe for detecting small molecules, and the mesoporous MOF could be the stationary phase in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for size-exclusion separation of large dye molecules.