Advanced Synthesis Techniques for Covalent Organic Frameworks

A fascinating new family of microporous polymers known as covalent organic frameworks (COFs) has characteristics never seen in organic material science. Typically, they are constructed from inflexible, geometrically specified organic building pieces that produce strong, two- or three-dimensional crystalline networks bound by covalent bonds. Synthesized COF materials can be precisely tuned and controlled at the atomic level in the intrapore chemical environment by carefully combining monomers with specific structures and properties. Additionally, the exceptionally high pore accessibility makes it simple to modify the pore wall after the COF is synthesized. Overall, COFs have a wide range of applications, including gas adsorption and storage, pollutant removal, degradation and separation, advanced filtration, heterogeneous catalysis, chemical sensing, biomedical applications, energy storage and production, and a wide range of optoelectronic solutions. They combine high permanent porosity and surface area with high thermal and chemical stability, crystallinity, and customizability. This chapter aims to provide a concise overview of the history of COFs and the general approaches and methods for rational COF synthesis and postsynthetic functionalization. It summarizes the key characteristics of COFs and introduces the many industrial and technological state-of-the-art applications, with notable examples from the literature.