A New Approach to Non-Coordinating Anions: Lewis Acid Enhancement of Porphyrin Metal Centers in a Zwitterionic Metal–Organic Framework

We describe a new strategy to generate non-coordinating anions using zwitterionic metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). By assembly of anionic inorganic secondary building blocks (SBUs) ([In(CO2)4]−) with cationic metalloporphyrin-based organic linkers, we prepared zwitterionic MOFs in which the complete internal charge separation effectively prevents the potential binding of the counteranion to the cationic metal center. We demonstrate the enhanced Lewis acidity of MnIII- and FeIII-porphyrins in the zwitterionic MOFs in three representative electrocyclization reactions: [2 + 1] cycloisomerization of enynes, [3 + 2] cycloaddition of aziridines and alkenes, and [4 + 2] hetero-Diels–Alder cycloaddition of aldehydes with dienes. This work paves a new way to design functional MOFs for tunable chemical catalysis.