Characterization of Zn‐Containing Metal–Organic Frameworks by Solid‐State 67Zn NMR Spectroscopy and Computational Modeling

Abstract

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an extremely important class of porous materials with many applications. The metal centers in many important MOFs are zinc cations. However, their Zn environments have not been characterized directly by (67)Zn solid-state NMR (SSNMR) spectroscopy. This is because (67)Zn (I=5/2) is unreceptive with many unfavorable NMR characteristics, leading to very low sensitivity. In this work, we report, for the first time, a (67)Zn natural abundance SSNMR spectroscopic study of several representative zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) and MOFs at an ultrahigh magnetic field of 21.1 T. Our work demonstrates that (67)Zn magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectra are highly sensitive to the local Zn environment and can differentiate non-equivalent Zn sites. The (67)Zn NMR parameters can be predicted by theoretical calculations. Through the study of MOF-5 desolvation, we show that with the aid of computational modeling, (67)Zn NMR spectroscopy can provide valuable structural information on the MOF systems with structures that are not well described. Using ZIF-8 as an example, we further demonstrate that (67)Zn NMR spectroscopy is highly sensitive to the guest molecules present inside the cavities. Our work also shows that a combination of (67)Zn NMR data and molecular dynamics simulation can reveal detailed information on the distribution and the dynamics of the guest species. The present work establishes (67)Zn SSNMR spectroscopy as a new tool complementary to X-ray diffraction for solving outstanding structural problems and for determining the structures of many new MOFs yet to come.