This tutorial review discusses recent literature on coordination polymers and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) that exhibit solid-state reactivity and structural transformation under various experimental conditions. Removal or exchange of solvents and guest molecules, exposure to reactive vapours, and external stimuli such as heat, light or mechanochemical force cause such structural transformations and these are often manifested by various physical properties such as colour, magnetism, luminescence, chirality, porosity, etc. due to change in coordination number and geometry, dimensionality, interpenetration, etc. More drastic transformations related to the exchange of metal ions, pillar ligands and insertion of additional ligands between the layers have also been demonstrated. The vast area of dynamic behaviour of coordination polymers and their stimuli-responsive properties have also been addressed briefly.

Lithium iron phosphate, LiFePO₄ (LFP), is considered to be a potential cathode material for lithium-ion batteries but its rate performance is significantly restricted by sluggish kinetics of electrons and lithium ions. A simple solvothermal method has been described in this article to synthesize carbon coated LFP (LFP/C) nanoplates with varying thickness from 20 to 500 nm by using different iron precursors. The influence of solvents on the morphology of the LFP in the solvothermal synthesis is also investigated. A uniform carbon coverage at the surfaces has been achieved by a selective chelating carbonising source, D-gluconic acid lactone. The smallest dimension of the nanoplates has been found to be the b-axis where the Li⁺ ion diffuses quickly. The overall capacity and rate performance have, in general, been found to increase with the decrease of thickness of the nanoplates. Hierarchical LFP/C with ∼30 nm thickness shows the best electrochemical performance of 167 mA h g⁻¹, followed by spindle (<20 nm thickness but aggregated, 121 mA h g⁻¹), plates (200–300 nm thickness, 110 mA h g⁻¹) and diamond shaped LFP/C (300–500 nm thickness, 82 mA h g⁻¹) at a current rate of 17mA g⁻¹ (0.1C rate). The spindle shaped LFP/C shows unexpected electrochemical performance since the nanoplates are heavily agglomerated in the bulk which prevents access for the liquid electrolyte, as well as additive Super P carbon, between neighbouring nanoplates during the fabrication of the composite electrodes. Hence, only the peripheral plates of the spindle are actively involved in the insertion/extraction of Li⁺ , while the core of the spindle shaped LFP/C is almost inactive, resulting in moderate storage behaviour.