Chapter 12: Biomimetic Metal–Organic Frameworks: Construction and Catalytic Performance

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have shown promising potential for biomimetic functionality due to their tailorable metal-containing nodes and organic ligands. Several important structural parallels exist between metalloenzymes and the well defined geometric structure of MOFs. This emerging class of materials exhibits notable structural analogies to the active sites in metalloenzymes constructed by coordinating ligands and metals with similar binding patterns. More importantly, biomimetic MOFs can exhibit significant enhancements in terms of stability, cost-efficiency and a controllable microenvironment over traditional metalloenzymes, which make biomimetic MOFs attractive for broader industrial applications. MOF-based biomimetic catalysis is still rudimentary, but it has been investigated corresponding to both the principles of designing biomimetic MOFs and their potential applications. Herein, we depict the progress of MOF-based biomimetic catalysts, covering the versatile synthetic strategies and subsequent catalytic performance, alongside an investigation of the structural parallels between enzymes and biomimetic MOFs via the replication of enzymatically active sites and microenvironments.