MOF derived high-density atomic platinum heterogeneous catalyst for C–H bond activation

Densely populated metal atomic site catalysts play a key role in practical catalysis applications. Herein, we report an amorphous nanobox with high-density atomic platinum species which are uniformly dispersed into the ZIF-8 skeleton through cation exchange. During the dispersing process, the ZIF-8 core was gradually etched into the hollow structure though the Kirkendall effect, and a great amount substitutions of Pt with Zn breaks the initial long-range ordered ZIF-8 topology into a distorted skeleton which leads to the significantly unsaturated coordination of atomic Pt species. The high-density atomic Pt nanoboxes exhibit excellent performance in direct C–H bond borylation of arenes which are usually catalyzed by homogeneous complexes. Such high-density atomic site heterogeneous catalysts could serve as a bridge to convert from homogeneous to heterogeneous catalysis.