A highly porous metal-organic framework, constructed from a cuboctahedral super-molecular building block, with exceptionally high methane uptake.

A highly porous metal-organic framework Cu(2)(BBCDC) (BBCDC = 9,9'-([1,1'-b[combining low line]iphenyl]-4,4'-diyl)b[combining low line]is(9H-c[combining low line]arbazole-3,6-d[combining low line]ic[combining low line]arboxylate) (DUT-49) with a specific surface area of 5476 m(2) g(-1), a pore volume of 2.91 cm(3) g(-1), a H(2) excess uptake of 80 mg g(-1) (77 K, 50 bar), a CO(2) excess uptake of 2.01 g g(-1) (298 K, 50 bar) and an exceptionally high excess methane storage capacity of 308 mg g(-1) (298 K, 110 bar) was obtained using an extended tetratopic linker.