Fig. 2: Catalyst encapsulation and activity validation.

a Cavity size of UiO-66 and UiO-67 compared to the size of HG2 and G3 (left). The optimized structure of G3 in the octahedral cage of UiO-67 by DFT shows no apparent deformation of MOF (right). Atom color code: H – white; B – orange; C (MOF) – brown; C (non-MOF) – gray; N – blue; O – red; Cl – green; Zr – lime; Ru – light blue. b A model RCM reaction is used to evaluate the reactivities of MOF-encapsulated catalysts. c The remaining activities are in the presence of tertiary amines (1 equivalent to the Ru loading) of different sizes. HG2 + UiO67 indicates that free HG2 and UiO-67 were added separately into the same reaction as a control. Each experiment was independently repeated three times (n = 3). Error bars represent the standard deviation of the population (σ) calculated from these replicates. Same for data in Fig. 2e. d–f Kinetics of the RCM reactions of a small diene substrate 2 and a large enyne substrate 3 catalyzed by free HG2 (e) and HG2@UiO-67 (f). The k_obs refers to the slope of the linear fitting to a first-order kinetic model. Reaction condition in (e): catalyst loading = 1.0 mol%, CD₂Cl₂ (0.24 M), RT; in (f) catalyst loading = 0.25 mol%, CD₂Cl₂ (0.18 M), RT. g Chemical structure of HG2-BODIPY and the optimized structure of HG2-BODIPY in the octahedral cage of UiO-67 by DFT shows no apparent deformation of MOF. Atom color code: H – white; B – orange; C (MOF) – brown; C (non-MOF) – gray; N – blue; O – red; F – cyan; Cl – green; Zr – lime; Ru – light blue. Confocal fluorescent microscopy image of HG2-BODIPY@UiO-67 (h, top) and the control sample HG2-BODIPY/UiO-67 (h, bottom), along with the corresponding brightfield images (scale bar = 2 mm).