Liquid exfoliation of a series of expanded layered Cu(II)-paddlewheel metal-organic frameworks to form nanosheets.

Ultrasonic liquid exfoliation provides a convenient route for converting layered materials into nanosheets. However, the relationship between the structure and morphology of the bulk materials and the properties of the resulting nanosheets remains poorly understood. In this work, we prepare an isoreticular series of layered metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based on linear aromatic dicarboxylate derivatives (L1, L2, L3) with three different linker lengths (L3 > L2 > L1) and using copper(II) nitrate and acetate as metal ion sources.