To confirm the formation of the Zn-N
3-OH bonds in the products, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) was collected as shown in Fig.
2F. ZIF-8-OH displayed a characteristic peak located at 3,659 cm
−1 attributed to the stretching of Zn-OH. In contrast, although ZIF-8-S-OH also exhibited a peak around 3,659 cm
−1, the peak intensity was significantly lower than ZIF-8-OH, implying a lower degree of hydroxyl group grafting. Moreover, since Zn-OH bonds were absent in ZIF-L and OH
− was not involved during the preparation of ZIF-8-L, no characteristic bending signals of Zn-OH were observed in the DRIFTS of ZIF-L and ZIF-8-L (Fig.
2F and Fig.
S5). The atomic ratio of N to Zn in the as-prepared samples was determined using a commercial carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur (CHNS) analyzer and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. As shown in
Table, the N/Zn values were 3.04, 4.54, 3.88, and 3.67, respectively. Theoretically, the ratio of Zn to N in ZIF-8 is 4:1. The notably lower values observed for ZIF-8-OH and ZIF-8-S-OH confirmed the partial replacement of Zn-N bonds by Zn-O bonds in these samples. The closer value of 3.04 in ZIF-8-OH to the theoretical ratio of 3.00 for Zn-N
3-OH suggests a higher concentration of active sites in ZIF-8-OH compared to ZIF-8-S-OH. The unusual Zn/N ratio in ZIF-8-L could be attributed to residual dimethylformamide (DMF) since the transformation was carried out in a solvent mixture of DMF and ethanol. N
2 adsorption–desorption isotherms were detected to evaluate the changes in pore structure (Fig.
2G and Fig.
S6A). ZIF-L, being nonporous, exhibited a low specific surface area of 12 m
2/g. After the structural transformation, both ZIF-8-OH and ZIF-8-L exhibited a porous structure. However, ZIF-8-L had a typical I sorption isotherm similar to the reported ZIF-8, while ZIF-8-OH exhibited an unusual adsorption curve with a hysteresis loop centered at
p/
p0 = 0.1. Although the hysteresis loop appeared frequently in MOFs with the hierarchical pore structure, they usually center above
p/
p0 = 0.4. The hysteresis loop located at low pressure is often associated with hydroxyl groups and defects [
41], representing the strong adsorption with preferential high-energy sites. ZIF-8-S-OH displayed a smaller hysteresis loop size than ZIF-8-OH at the same pressure range, indicating fewer Zn-OH strong adsorption sites, consistent with the results above. Pore size distributions were calculated by the density functional theory (DFT) method (Fig.
2H and Fig.
S6B). Micropores and mesopores were found to coexist in ZIF-8-OH and ZIF-8-S-OH, while ZIF-8-L exhibited the dominant microporous structure. The generation of active centers resulted in defect formation, leading to the appearance of mesopores in ZIF-8-OH and ZIF-8-S-OH.