A Porous Coordination Network Catalyzes an Olefin Isomerization Reaction in the Pore

摘要

Catalysis is an important and highly desirable application ofnporous coordination networks1 and is a major focal point of thennetwork field. The few reports on catalysis by porous coordinationnnetworks have assumed that the reactions occurred within thenpores.2 In this report, we describe a catalytic olefin isomerizationnwithin a porous network. The olefin substrate we examined here isnretinal, whose cis-trans isomerization has been exhaustivelynstudied.3,4 We found that this standard reaction is catalyzed by onlyna trace amount of crystals of a porous network in cyclohexane.nBy demonstrating (i) that the retinal in solution (out-retinal)nrapidly diffused into the pore, (ii) that only retinal within thenpore (in-retinal) isomerized,5 (iii) that the in- and out-retinalnare in rapid equilibrium, and finally (iv) that a similar complexnwith no absorption property for retinal did not show the catalysis,nwe conclude that the reaction took place inside the pores of thencoordination network.