The regulation of gas sorption via simple pore modification is crucial to molecular recognition and chemical separation. Herein, a rational pore surface electrostatic modulation in synthetic one dimensioned (1D) channel is demonstrated to boost ethane/ethylene (C₂H₆/C₂H₄) selectivity for one-step extraction of C₂H₄ from C₂H₆/C₂H₄ mixtures. Through the precise modulation of the surface charge arrangement with negatively charged moieties in the 1D channel of a metal–organic framework (MOF), enhanced C₂H₆–host framework and decreased C₂H₄–host framework electrostatic interactions were obtained, which resulted in an obvious improvement in adsorption selectivity. Furthermore, the breakthrough separation performance rendered the obtained MOF an efficient adsorbent for C₂H₄ purification from C₂H₆/C₂H₄ mixture. The combined detail theoretical studies prove that the gas sorption selectivity is remarkably sensitive to framework electrostatic change even in the case of pore surface modification at the atomic level. These results are of fundamental importance to the design of porous materials for challenging separation tasks.

Bacterial pathogens pose a serious threat to human health, and there is an urgent need to develop highly effective antibacterial materials to eliminate the increasingly serious contamination of drug-resistant bacteria. Here, a Cu-doped ZIF-8 particle with unsaturated copper exhibits high peroxidase-like activity. 99.998% antibacterial efficiency against S. aureus can be achieved for 30 min at a low concentration of 50 μg·mL⁻¹, as well as complete sterilization against E. coli (up to 8 log). 99.999% antibacterial efficiency against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus can be achieved, performing orders of magnitude higher than Vancomycin. The mechanism shows that the unsaturated Cu-N_x sites are enzyme-like active centers, which could promote the consumption of bacteria reducing substances by H₂O₂, and the generated *OH further aggravates bacterial oxidative stress and membrane damage. More importantly, the oxidation activity of adsorbed oxygen species on Cu-ZIF-8 is enhanced by charge transfer and structural changes between the ligand and copper center like natural enzymes. Cu-doped ZIF-8 with peroxidase-like activity shows great potential in antibacterial application and the revealed catalytic mechanism is helpful for understanding the high antibacterial activity of nanoparticles with Cu-N_x sites.

The use of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as solid adsorption materials for carbon capture is promising, but achieving efficient and reversible adsorption with a balance of capacity and selectivity for carbon dioxide (CO₂) over N₂ remains a challenge. To take full advantage of the strong channel traffic and robustness of MOFs with relatively small pores, it is highly necessary to employ a defect-engineering strategy to construct a broader channel structure that can facilitate the loading of functional motif-rich amino acids (AAs). This strategy can greatly enhance the CO₂ adsorption performance of MOF. In this study, motif-rich amino acids are loaded into the defective and robust porous frameworks via combined defect-engineering and post-synthetic methods. The defective Zr/Hf-MOF-808s modified with AAs, especially for the 18 mol% 4-nitroisophthalic acid, generated defective products allowing for the loading of L-serine (L-Ser). This modification resulted in a significant improvement in both the adsorption capacity (248% improvement at 298 K, 100 kPa) and the selectivity of CO₂/N₂ using the ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST), with the selectivity increasing to 120.55 and 38.27 at 15 and 100 kPa, respectively, while maintaining good cycling performance. Density functional theory (DFT) simulation, CO₂ temperature-programmed desorption (CO₂-TPD), and in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were further employed to have a better understanding of the enhanced CO₂ adsorption capacity. Interestingly, unlike the AAs loaded pristine MOF-808s that showed the best CO₂ adsorption capacity with the loading of short and small glycine (Gly), the broadened channel size in our work enables the loading of functional motif-rich L-serine, which brings more active binding sites, improving CO₂ adsorption.