Triazine functionalized fully conjugated covalent organic framework for efficient photocatalysis

Development of highly functionalized fully-conjugated covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with novel linkages is an emerging field. Herein, a fully sp2-carbon two-dimensional (2D) COF (TTO-COF) was designed and synthesized by acid-catalyzed Aldol reaction on the basis of the assembling triazine units into COFs uniformly. TTO-COF proved to be a photosensitive semiconductor (optical bandgap is 2.46 eV) with high chemical stability under harsh conditions (strong acid and strong base) and superior conduction efficiency of carriers, exhibiting better performance and reusability in photocatalytic degradation of dyes and C–H functionalization of arenes and heteroarenes compared to imine COFs and g-C3N4. Our work indicates that functionalized olefin-linked COF has great potential to be a kind of photocatalyst.