Blue light photocatalytic oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides with oxygen over a thiazole-linked 2D covalent organic framework

With permanent porosity and intrinsic crystallinity, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have great potential for solar energy conversions. However, the crystallinity of COFs necessitates reversible linkages like imine, leading to inadequate chemical stability of COFs as photocatalysts. To overcome this inadequacy, post-synthetic modifications (PSMs) transform an imine-linked COF, TTI-COF, into a thiazole-linked COF, TTT-COF. The morphology and crystallinity of TTT-COF are similar to that of TTI-COF. Compared to TTI-COF, TTT-COF secures evident amelioration of stability and optoelectronic properties supported by both experiments and theoretical calculations. Consequently, these two COFs are exploited for the photocatalytic oxidation of organic sulfides. Under blue light-emitting diode irradiation, TTI-COF marginally impels the reaction. In contrast, TTT-COF emerges with significantly better activity for selective oxidation of organic sulfides with oxygen in ethanol. This work sheds light on the transformative power of PSMs for tailoring COFs in visible light photocatalysis for oxidations.