Enhanced Structural Organization in Covalent Organic Frameworks Through Fluorination

Sampath B Alahakoon; Gregory T McCandless; Arosha A K Karunathilake; Christina M Thompson; Ronald A Smaldone

doi:10.1002/chem.201700412

Enhanced Structural Organization in Covalent Organic Frameworks Through Fluorination

Chemistry. 2017 Mar 28;23(18):4255-4259. doi: 10.1002/chem.201700412. Epub 2017 Mar 3.

Authors

Sampath B Alahakoon¹, Gregory T McCandless¹, Arosha A K Karunathilake¹, Christina M Thompson¹, Ronald A Smaldone¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Rd, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA.

PMID: 28135407
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201700412

Abstract

Here, we report a structure-function study of imine covalent organic frameworks (COFs) comparing a series of novel fluorine-containing monomers to their non-fluorinated analogues. We found that the fluorine-containing monomers produced 2D-COFs with not only greatly improved surface areas (over 2000 m² g^-1 compared to 760 m² g^-1 for the non-fluorinated analogue), but also with improved crystallinity and larger, more defined pore diameters. We then studied the formation of these COFs under varying reaction times and temperatures to obtain a greater insight into their mechanism of formation.

Keywords: 2D-COF; covalent organic framework (COF); fluorination; monomers; structural organization.