Topological Analysis of Metal-Organic Frameworks with Polytopic Linkers and/or Multiple Building Units and the Minimal Transitivity Principle

A consistent approach to the description on the structures of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and related materials are studied in terms of their underlying nets for cases in which these nets have more than two kinds of vertices. For MOFs formed from polytopic linkers, identifying both the basic net in which the linker is considered as a single node and the derived net in which branch points are identified explicitly, is recommended. The intrinsic symmetry of the crystal is that of the derived net, which may be lower than that of the basic net. The net gwg, derived from cds, is an example in which a tetragonal basic net has only a monoclinic derived net of minimal transitivity. Structures with different derived nets that may have the same symmetry can be differentiated. The basic nets with transitivity 3 2 (type iv of section 7) are particularly important in this regard. Several MOFs have been constructed using an octatopic linker with symmetrical shapes.