A Review on Advanced Covalent Organic Framework Membranes: Design, Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications

Membrane technology has received great interest in the past decades in diverse disciplines like chemistry, engineering, physics, and materials science. To handle current and upcoming scientific, technological, and social concerns, better and more effective membranes are required. For the manufacturing of such membranes, new materials with improved characteristics are requested. Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) are a novel type of crystalline porous materials, that has a vast surface area, tunable pore size, structure, and functionality; making them an ideal option for membrane fabrication. Several articles focusing on the production of membranes for various applications using COFs have been published recently. In this context, this article review examines the study that looked at the creation of COFs membrane and their various appliances in numerous fields. Firstly, this work seeks to give a comprehensive picture of the covalent organic framework membrane fabrication techniques, highlighting the basic parameters for their fabrication and also their weaknesses. The second goal was to present a thorough overview of the characterization techniques used for COF membranes. The third objective detailed the applications of these membranes in numerous processes, including molecular separation, gas separation, water purification, and energy storage. From our perspective, using this article review as a starting point to teach about the function of covalent organic frameworks membranes in diverse domains would be beneficial.