In the first part of my talk, I will summarise our research in the area of multicomponent metal-organic frameworks. Here, we have discovered ways to build up ordered MOFs from three different organic linkers in combination with a metal clusters. This allows us to functionalize the pore spaces very precisely. Unexpected gas sorption trends, high stability to water vapour and tuneable catalytic properties all emerge from these multicomponent MOFs.

In the second part of my talk, I will outline a series of MOFs in which partial degrees of interpenetration can controlled. This is achieved by two means: either by direct growth of partially interpenetrated lattices or by the thermal single-crystal to single-crystal conversion of a noninterpenetrated framework into its interpenetrated counterpart (“autocatenation”).