Intentionally introduced defects into solid materials
create opportunities
to control and tune their diverse physicochemical properties. Despite
the growing interest in defect-engineered metal–organic frameworks
(MOFs), there are still only a handful of studies on defective proton-conducting
MOFs, including no reports on two-dimensional ones. Ion-conducting
materials are fundamentally of great importance to the development
of energy storage and conversion devices, including fuel cells and
batteries. In this work, we demonstrate the introduction of missing-linker
defects into a sulfonated proton conductive 2D zirconium-based MOF
(JUK-14), using a facile post-synthetic approach and
compare the stability and performance of the resulting materials,
including proton conductivity, as well as adsorption of N2, CO2, and H2O molecules. We also discuss the
associated presence of interlayer counterions and their effect on
the properties and stability. Our approach to defect engineering can
be extended to other layered MOFs and used for tuning their activity.