Single-Site Organozirconium Catalyst Embedded in a Metal–Organic Framework

A structurally well-defined mesoporous Hf-based metal–organic framework (Hf-NU-1000) is employed as a well-defined scaffold for a highly electrophilic single-site d0 Zr–benzyl catalytic center. This new material Hf-NU-1000-ZrBn is fully characterized by a variety of spectroscopic techniques and DFT computation. Hf-NU-1000-ZrBn is found to be a promising single-component catalyst (i.e., not requiring a catalyst/activator) for ethylene and stereoregular 1-hexene polymerization.