Taming defective porous materials for robust and selective heterogeneous catalysis

The production of 1-butene via ethylene dimerization is one of the few industrial processes that employs homogeneous catalysis due to their high selectivity - despite the massive amounts of activators and solvents required. Researchers have developed a more sustainable alternative via metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a family of porous materials formed by metallic nodes connected through organic ligands.