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The Co/CoO nanoparticles armored by porous N-doped carbon polyhedrons were successfully prepared from ZIF-67 via a pyrolysis-reorganization method, demonstrating excellent sensing performance towards glucose oxidation.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as porous materials have significantly improved catalytic properties because of their rich active sites and large surface area. Herein, we develop a facile and efficient diffusion-controlled strategy to prepare ZIF-67 hollow nanoprisms (ZIF-67 HNPs) for a non-enzymatic glucose sensor. The interparticle pores of the hollow structure can afford fast diffusion pathway for guest molecules to move in and out of the MOF crystals. Such nanostructured MOF-based sensors exhibit good electrocatalytic activity towards glucose oxidation in an alkaline solution with a high sensitivity of 445.7 μA mM−1 cm−2, a low detection limit of 0.96 μM (S/N = 3) and a upper limit of 42.1 mM, and can be used to directly determine blood glucose. Moreover, it achieves well-pleasing results in the non-enzymatic analysis of glucose in real human blood serum samples. In addition, the as-prepared sensor also displays satisfactory reproducibility, selectivity and long-term storage stability. This study focuses on a facile strategy to design the in situ growth of hollow MOF nanomaterials as efficient and stable electrocatalysts, shedding light on the development of non-enzymatic sensors for monitoring glucose with transition metal-based hollow MOF catalysts.

An efficient iron-catalyzed C–O bond functionalization of butyrolactam derivatives with various N-/C-nucleophiles to enable the synthesis of pharmaceutically important butyrolactam derivatives has been developed here. The versatility of the present methodology is demonstrated for direct amination and carbonation by using a variety of sulfonamides, amines, amides, indoles, and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds under mild conditions. The reaction also showed a wide substrate scope and synthetic simplicity. Additionally, only alcohol was produced as the by-product in all cases.

A novel type of transition bimetal–organic frameworks was described as a heterogeneous catalyst for the oxidative coupling of amines to imines under mild conditions, which was easily synthesized by the coordination assembly of manganese(II) and cobalt(II) with 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (H3BTC) for the first time. The metal–organic framework material was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetry and N2 sorption. As an environmentally benign heterogeneous catalyst, the catalytic ability of the metal–organic framework material was then detected to be excellent for the tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) promoted direct oxidative coupling of benzylamines to imines in excellent yields (up to 100%) in methanol for 3 h. More importantly, it could be recycled up to six runs, while still maintaining its high catalytic activity.

A novel kind of Co-based metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are firstly prepared by coordination assembly of Co(II) and 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylic acid (H3BTC) through a hydrothermal route (referred to as Co-BTC MOF). Such Co-BTC MOF have a zigzag vermicular-like shape with a length of 126 nm and a width of 55 nm. Co-BTC MOFs without calcination treatment are applied as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and show superior electrochemical performance, including high lithium storage capacity (1739 mA h g−1 in the first discharge process at a current density of 100 mA g−1), excellent coulombic efficiency (above 99% in the 199th cycle) and cycling performance (>750 mA h g−1 over 200 cycles) in the potential range of 0.01–3.0 V vs. Li/Li+. Such excellent electrochemical performance may be derived from the conjugated carboxylate moiety and the linker structure. More importantly, the facile approach may also be extended to other metal-based MOFs and the intriguing results show that nano-sized MOFs will be regarded as futuristic anode materials for advanced lithium storage.