Synthesis of borocarbonitride from a multifunctional Cu(I) boron imidazolate framework.

A functional Cu(I) boron imidazolate framework (BIF) with a ladder-chain structure can not only change to another single-chain structure by incorporating 4,4'-bipyridine, but can also act as a reducing agent to load trimetal Au-Ag-Pd nanoparticles directly; the BIF with loaded noble NPs showed an excellent reduction effect on 4-nitrophenol. Moreover, we obtained a porous borocarbonitride by the direct carbonisation of this low-dimensional BIF. The resulting porous borocarbonitride exhibits fast adsorption behavior for 4-nitrophenol and can be a high-temperature conductor.