日本ゼオライト学会　刊行物 Publication of Japan Zeolite Association

Research on organic porous crystals has advanced greatly in the last several decades. These porous crystals are typically assembled by making use of a strong intermolecular bonding network. Contrary to this, a handful of discrete molecules is known to assemble into porous molecular crystals, which is held only by weak interactions. All these crystals are found by chance, and their molecular structures are totally different from each other. In this mini-review, a molecular design strategy for synthesizing the porous molecular crystals is introduced, together with two examples reported by the authors. The first porous molecular crystal features high thermal stability and self-healing ability. A fundamental insight into how the porous structure forms is also investigated. Second crystal features hydrochromism, namely, the crystal turns from yellow to red upon adsorption of moisture from the surrounding atmosphere.