Volume 61, Issue 2 e202113852
Research Article

Tailoring the Pore Surface of 3D Covalent Organic Frameworks via Post-Synthetic Click Chemistry

Dr. Bo Gui

Dr. Bo Gui

Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 China

These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Xuefen Liu

Xuefen Liu

Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 China

These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Yuanpeng Cheng

Yuanpeng Cheng

Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 China

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Ya Zhang

Ya Zhang

Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 China

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Pohua Chen

Pohua Chen

College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871 China

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Minghui He

Minghui He

Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 China

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Prof. Dr. Junliang Sun

Prof. Dr. Junliang Sun

College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871 China

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Prof. Dr. Cheng Wang

Corresponding Author

Prof. Dr. Cheng Wang

Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072 China

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First published: 10 November 2021
Citations: 73

Dedicated to Professor Daoben Zhu and Professor J. Fraser Stoddart on the occasion of their 80th birthday

Graphical Abstract

A series of highly crystalline 3D COFs with variable loadings of ethynyl groups were designed and synthesized. Remarkably, these alkyne-tagged 3D COFs provide a platform for targeted anchoring various organic groups onto the pore walls via click reactions, which can accordingly change their properties, e.g., the obtained click products exhibited higher CO2/N2 selectivity.

Abstract

Three-dimensional covalent organic frameworks (3D COFs) have gained increasing attention for their attractive features. However, the development of 3D COFs is strongly restricted, mainly due to their synthetic difficulty and complicated structure determination. Post-synthetic modification, which can avoid these problems by incorporating functional moieties into a predetermined framework, provides an alternative way to construct 3D COFs with specific functions. Herein, we report the designed synthesis and characterization of a series of highly crystalline 3D COFs with different loadings of ethynyl groups. Notably, these alkyne-tagged 3D COFs provide a platform for targeted anchoring various specific groups onto the pore walls via click reactions. Moreover, the pore surface engineering can accordingly change their properties, for example, the obtained click products exhibited higher CO2/N2 selectivity. We describe a simple but powerful strategy to build functional 3D COFs, which will certainly advance them for a ranging of interesting applications in the future.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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