Herrera-OrganoCatalisis Asimétrica Group

The highlight entitled “Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) bring new life to hydrogen-bonding organocatalysts in confined spaces” has just been published at CrystEngComm. In this work, together with Prof. David Díaz (Universität Regensburg), we have compiled and studied the literature which involves the intriguing idea of designing and synthesizing new MOFs containing moieties typically employed in hydrogen-bonding organocatalysis, which allows the use of these advantageous materials in catalytic transformations.

“Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) bring new life to hydrogen-bonding organocatalysts in confined spaces”. Alegre-Requena, J. V.; Marqués-López, E.; Herrera R. P.; Diaz Diaz, D. CrystEngComm, 2016, Accepted Manuscript. DOI 10.1039/C5CE02526E. 

Abstract. Hydrogen-bonding
organocatalysis has emerged as promising biomimetic alternative to Lewis acid catalysis. Urea, thiourea and squaramide moieties represent the most common hydrogen-bond donors used for the preparation of these catalysts. However, their significant tendency to undergo self-quenching (self-aggregation) often decrease their solubility and reactivity. Recently, scientists have found a promising way around this problem by immobilizing the hydrogen-bonding organocatalysts on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Along with advantageous modular synthesis and recycling properties, the tunable porosity and topology of MOFs also allows fast mass transport and/or interactions with substrates. Herein, we highlight the existing examples dealing with the fabrication and testing of hydrogen-bonding organocatalyst-containing MOFs, providing also our vision for further advances in this area. The results derived from these works will likely serve as inspiration for the future development of superior hydrogen-bonding organocatalysts to accomplish in confined spaces chemical transformations that are either slow or unaffordable under standard homogeneous conditions.