Porphyrin-metallacage-crosslinked supramolecular network for visible-light-driven heterogeneous photocatalysis

Although metallacages have been widely employed as a type of efficient catalysts owing to their confined cavities, their limited stability and reusability hinder their further applications in photocatalysis. Herein, a metallacage-crosslinked supramolecular network is prepared and used as a heterogeneous photocatalyst for visible-light-driven photooxidation reactions. The integration of metallacages with polymer networks converts the homogeneous metallacage-based catalysts into heterogeneous xerogel-based catalysts, showing much improved stability, reusability, and photocatalytic activity. For the photocatalytic coupling reaction of pyrenemethylamine, the conversion and yield achieved outstanding levels of 98.5% and 95.5%, respectively, within 20 min, surpassing the performance of a porphyrin-crosslinked polymer network. This study reports a type of metallacage-crosslinked supramolecular networks as efficient heterogeneous photocatalysts, which will promote the development of metallacage-cored polymeric materials for practical catalytic applications.