Beyond Custom Design of Organic Ligands: An Integrative Strategy for Metal-Organic Frameworks Design

In this review, we systematically summarize our recent work on how metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are constructed via custom design of organic ligands and beyond. Following a brief introduction of basic concepts and general background of MOFs, we explain how to fine-tune MOFs' structures via the design strategy of network, secondary building unit (SBU), and ligand. Amongst these, the custom design of organic ligands plays a fundamental yet important role in this field. In addition, the custom-designed ligands, which feature certain functional motifs, can further enrich the performances of targeted MOFs owing to the primary functionalities bestowed on the frameworks by the ligands. Therefore, the custom design of organic ligands and beyond can be a useful approach to task-specifical functionalizing of the frameworks.