Metal nodes and organic ligands are important structural units of MOFs, and their properties can profoundly affect the photocatalytic activity. Herein, two ferrocene-based MOFs with FeO₆ or AlO₆ clusters as the metal nodes and 1,1′-ferrocenedicarboxylic acid (H₂FcDC) as the ligands were successfully synthesized. Comparing with normal organic ligands, ferrocene ligands have longer-lived photogenerated charges due to metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) process, leading to a better photocatalytic activity of the corresponding ferrocene-based MOFs. In addition, the FeO₆ clusters are able to further accept the photogenerated electrons from ferrocene ligands compared to the inert AlO₆ clusters, allowing a long-distance charge transfer process, namely the proposed metal-to-ligand-to-metal charge transfer (MLMCT) process, which results in a better performance towards photocatalytic CO₂ cycloaddition reaction. This work sheds a light on designing MOFs using ferrocene ligands with high photocatalytic activity.

金属节点和有机配体是MOFs的重要结构单元，它们的性质可以深刻影响光催化活性。_{在此，成功合成了两种以FeO 6}或AlO ₆簇为金属节点、1,1'-二茂铁二甲酸（H ₂ FcDC）为配体的二茂铁基MOF 。与普通有机配体相比，二茂铁配体由于金属到配体电荷转移（MLCT）过程而具有更长寿命的光生电荷，从而导致相应的二茂铁基MOFs具有更好的光催化活性。此外，与惰性AlO 6 簇相比，FeO _6簇能够进一步接受来自二茂铁配体的光生电子团簇，允许长距离电荷转移过程，即所提出的金属到配体到金属电荷转移（MLMCT）过程，这使得光催化CO 2 环加成反应具有更好的_性能。这项工作为使用具有高光催化活性的二茂铁配体设计 MOF 提供了思路。