MOF confinement enables selective synthesis of novel oxazoles from indole and formaldehyde.

Herein, we report the successful guidance of indole and formaldehyde reactivity by precisely tuning the pore size and active sites of MOF, altering their intrinsic reaction pathways. This led to the first example of novel compounds synthesized through the synergistic catalysis enabled by MOF confinement. Detailed mechanistic studies revealed that the confined environment within the MOF pores promoted the occurrence of multi-stage cascade reactions and stabilized specific reaction pathways.