Mesoporous metal-organic frameworks(MOFs), comparing with those with micropores, have attracted tremendous attention for expanding their applications in gas storage, heterogeneous catalysis, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) adsorption, drug carrier, etc. Metal-organic frameworks are still largely restricted to the microporous regins to date, with the negative impact of small pore size on the diffusion and mass transfer inside. The development of reliable and reproducible methods to prepare and stabilize mesoporous metal-organic frameworks with tailored structures and tunable properties remains a great challenge to meet many future applications. The structure of materials can be designed on molecular level, but the problem remains that the frameworks tend to interpenetrate one another to maximize packing efficiency or collapse while solvent molecules removed. The preparation and applications of mesoporous metal-organic frameworks are reviewed in this paper. Several preparation approaches, such as combining secondary building units(SBUs) and extended ligands, designing zinc-adeninate octahedral building units with lager size, using long ligands or mixed-ligands, surfactant template to get mesosize channels, cages or pockets are presented in detail, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are summarized. In addition, applications of mesoporous metal-organic frameworks in the areas of gas storage, catalysis, sensors, adsorption of VOCs and drug carrier are introduced.

Contents
1 Introduction
2 Design of mesoporous metal-organic frameworks
2.1 SBU and extended ligands
2.2 Metal-adeninate vertices
2.3 Long ligands
2.4 Utility of mixed-ligands
2.5 Surfactant template
3 Application of mesoporous metal-organic frameworks
3.1 Gas storage
3.2 Heterogeneous catalysis
3.3 Sensors
3.4 Adsorption of VOCs
3.5 Drug carrier
4 Conclusion