Recent advances of functional heterometallic-organic framework (HMOF) materials: Design strategies and applications

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have different structures and various intrinsic properties, such as large specific surface area, flexible and adjustable structural configurations, coordinately-unsaturated metal center, etc., which facilitate the rapid development and wide application of coordination chemistry, over the past decades, including gas adsorption, catalysis, and magnetism. Although the metals in various regions of the periodic table have been explored to build different monometallic MOFs, the researches about functional heterometallic-organic framework (HMOF) materials have not been particularly in-depth. Compared with monometallic MOFs, some special positions are occupied by the heterogeneous metals in one HMOF, which will result in interesting network topologies, and the excellent synergistic effect between the different metal ions will make the physical and chemical properties to be effectively enhanced. This review mainly focuses on introducing the latest progresses of HMOFs, including the various synthesis strategies, applications and outlooks, which may provide some useful guidance for the preparation of novel HMOF materials and make them widely used in the whole energy landscape.