Structures and applications of metal–organic frameworks featuring metal clusters

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), self-assembled from metal ions or metal clusters with organic ligands, are well known for their intriguing structure, permanent porosity, and tunable properties and have shown great prospect for various applications. In the present review, we mainly highlight recent significant examples of metal clusters in our team and provide a comprehensive review on the structure of metal cluster-based MOFs and their applications including for sensing metal ions, small molecules and gases, nitroaromatics and explosives, as well as many other applications. We classified two different coordination polymers: (i) homometallic coordination polymers (examples of coordination polymers with single and mixed types of secondary building units) and (ii) heterometallic coordination polymers (examples of coordination polymers based on metal–oxygen clusters and W–Cu–S clusters).