Scandium-organic frameworks: progress and prospects

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) represent a class of crystalline coordination compounds with periodic structures composed of metal cations or clusters connected by organic linkers. In recent years, increasing interest has been attracted to the synthesis and study of MOFs based on oxophilic cations of early transition metals, first of all, Zr-IV, Hf-IV, Ti-IV and Sc-III, and also main group Al-III cations. The carboxylate complexes of these metals possess high stability, which ensures the chemical robustness of the corresponding coordination polymers. The MOFs based on scandium(III) and oxygen-containing ligands are promising for the design of porous materials possessing high specific surface areas, high hydrolytic and thermal stabilities of the coordination framework and diverse functional properties. This review addresses the chemistry of metal-organic frameworks based on scandium(III). Published data on the synthesis and crystal structure characterization of scandium-containing coordination polymers available before 2018 are discussed. The properties of these compounds are considered.