Laser driven conversion of MOFs to rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles

We report the production of ultrafine rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles from metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) using lasers, exemplified by the conversion of three Tb-MOFs composed of three different linkers, such as C 4 H 4 O 4 (H 2 Fum), C 27 H 18 O 6 (H 3 BTB), and C 24 H 15 O 6 N 3 (H 3 TATB). The size of the resulting terbium oxide nanoparticles is precisely controlled from 3 to 12 nm with a narrow distribution, which was challenging to be obtained by other methods. Two types of Tb 2 O 3 crystals are observed, including the stable cubic structure and the metastable monoclinic structure. Among these rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles, the monoclinic Tb 2 O 3 converted from Tb-MOF-TATB with mesopores perform the best in oxygen evolution reactions, exhibiting an overpotential of 331 mV.