Understanding the
host–guest chemistry in MOFs represents
a research field with outstanding potential to develop in a rational
manner novel porous materials with improved performances in fields
such as heterogeneous catalysis. Herein, we report a family of three
isoreticular MOFs derived from amino acids and study the influence
of the number and nature of functional groups decorating the channels
as a catalyst in hemiketalization reactions. In particular, a multivariate
(MTV) MOF3, prepared by using equal percentages of amino
acids L-serine and L-mecysteine, in comparison to single-component
(“traditional”) MOFs, derived from either L-serine or
L-mecysteine (MOFs1and2), exhibits the
most efficient catalytic conversions for the hemiketalization of different
aldehydes and ketalization of cyclohexanone. On the basis of the experimental
data reported, the good catalytic performance of MTV-MOF3is attributed to the intrinsic heterogeneity of MTV-MOFs. These
results highlight the potential of MTV-MOFs as strong candidates to
mimic natural nonacidic enzymes, such as glycosidases, and to unveil
novel catalytic mechanisms not so easily accessible with other microporous
materials.