Reticular Rare-Earth Metal–Organic Frameworks with High Stability and Defective Sites: Post-Functionalization for Hydrogen Peroxide Detection

Rare-earth metal–organic frameworks (RE-MOFs), which are composed of polynuclear RE clusters of high connection, are gaining prominent attention in MOF chemistry, due to their tremendous structure diversity. The vulnerability of RE-MOFs to moisture and acid/alkaline conditions, however, has limited their modification and application. Herein, based on MOF reticular chemistry, we utilize a ditopic linker of distinct spatial configuration to construct a series of RE(III)-MOFs with bcu topology, BUT-47(M) (M = Tb 3+, Y 3+, Yb 3+ and Tm 3+; BUT = Beijing University of Technology), featuring the rare 8-connected RE 6 clusters and defective sites. BUT-47(Tb) shows high chemical stability in a wide pH range (2–12). The functionalized BUT-47(Tb) through post-modification in the defective RE 6 clusters demonstrates to be capable of selective fluorescence detection of hydrogen peroxide. This work not only highlights the strength of reticular chemistry principles in designing stable RE-MOFs with intriguing structures but also offers smart platforms to tailor properties for specific applications.