Transform (FFT) images (Figure ) support this further. The FFTs of aDUT-67 and DUT67 show reflections with similar spacing, indicating that aDUT-67 likely has metal oxide clusters that remain interlinked with comparable arrangement. How the observed node distortions, which produce the two distinct second shell Zr-Zr peaks observed in the PDF of aDUT-67 correlated with possible structural defects induced during RHT remains unclear. A possible explanation could be a rearrangement of the coordination environment around the Zr cus sites. We hypothesize that the node distortions originate from local symmetry changes of ZrO x polyhedra after creating O-vacancies in {Zr 6 } clusters. We find evidence of such distortions and symmetry breaking using XAS. Compared to pristine DUT-67, aDUT-67's XANES shows a reduced edge intensity, indicating lower Zr valency (Figure ). The 6-hour sample's white line intensity matches that of 8-connected Zr in c-ZrO 2 and t-ZrO 2 . The centrosymmetry of the ZrO x polyhedra, i.e. how the O atoms surround the central Zr atom (Figure ), influences the broadness of the main peak in the differential XANES (Figure ). The broader full-width-half-maximum (FW HM) in aDUT-67 compared to m-ZrO 2 and the pristine MOF, suggests an exceptionally high proportion of low-symmetry Zr sites, attributed to Zr cus sites. Further, EXAFS fitting of the first shell peak of aDUT-67 reveals an average coordination number of 7.5 for Zr, compared to 8 for DUT-67 (Figure and Table ), indicating that approximately 50% of ZrO 8 sites have converted to ZrO 7 sites, confirming the formation of Zr cus sites during RHT. WT-EXAFS analysis shows reduced k-weighting in the second shell correlations for aDUT-67 (Figure ), compared to DUT-67 and m-ZrO 2 (Figure and j, respectively), suggesting the absence of bulk m-ZrO 2 formation and instead again indicating discrete {Zr 6 } clusters decorated with low-valent ZrO 7 sites in aDUT-67.