Laser driven conversion of MOFs to rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles

Abstract

We report the production of ultrafine rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles from metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) using lasers, exemplified by the conversion of three Tb-MOFs composed of three different linkers, such as C4H4O4 (H2Fum), C27H18O6 (H3BTB), and C24H15O6N3 (H3TATB). The size of the resulting terbium oxide nanoparticles is precisely controlled from 3 to 12 nm with a narrow distribution, which was challenging to be obtained by other methods. Two types of Tb2O3 crystals are observed, including the stable cubic structure and the metastable monoclinic structure. Among these rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles, the monoclinic Tb2O3 converted from Tb-MOF-TATB with mesopores perform the best in oxygen evolution reactions, exhibiting an overpotential of 331 mV.