Elaboration of Porous Salts

A large library of novel porous salts based on charged coordination cages was synthesized via straightforward salt metathesis reactions. For these, solutions of salts of oppositely charged coordination cages are mixed to precipitate MOF-like permanently porous products where metal identity, pore size, ligand functional groups, and surface area are highly tunable. For most of these materials, the constituent cages combine in the ratios expected based on their charge. Additional studies focused on the rate of salt metathesis or reaction stoichiometry as variables to tune particle size or product composition, respectively. It is expected that the design principles outlined here will be widely applicable for the synthesis of new porous salts based on a variety of charged porous molecular precursors.