Facile mechanochemical synthesis of MIL-53 and its isoreticular analogues with a glance at reaction reversibility

Abstract

MIL-53 represents one of the most notable metal–organic frameworks given its unique structural flexibility and remarkable thermal stability. In this study, a shaker-type ball milling method has been developed into a facile and generalizable synthetic strategy to access a family of MIL-53 type materials under ambient conditions. During the explorations of [M(OH)(fumarate)] (M = Al, Ga, and In), we report a positive correlation between the metal–ligand (M–L) bond reversibility and the size of resultant crystallites under the mechanochemical process. The more kinetically labile the M–L bond is, the larger the afforded crystallite size is.