Flexible microporous coordination polymers

In a decade, many porous coordination polymers have been synthesized, providing a variety of properties ranging from storage, separation and exchange of guests in their cavities, magnetism, conductivity and catalysis by their frameworks. Recent advent of flexible porous coordination polymers, which exhibit elastic guest accommodation in contrast to rigid three-dimensional (3-D) frameworks of conventional porous materials, have acquired a position as a new class of porous materials. Such flexible porous properties induce highly selective guest accommodation and magnetic modulation, which could now be a unique class of practical materials. In this review, we introduce recent flexible porous coordination polymers (3–17) and their functional properties, categorizing with the four types of pores with framework deformation.