Taming defective porous materials for robust and selective heterogeneous catalysis

The production of 1-butene via ethylene dimerization is one of the few industrial processes that employs homogeneous catalysis due to its high selectivity, despite the massive amounts of activators and solvents required. Now, a new paper by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), in collaboration with the López group at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) and RTI International, shows a more sustainable alternative via metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a family of porous materials formed by metallic nodes connected through organic ligands.