Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) made their debut in 2005 and caused enthusiastic attention because of their ordered, crystalline structure. They are constructed with pure organic building blocks that are linked together by robust covalent linkages. COFs are applied in numerous fields due to their large surface area, architecture and chemistry stabilities, functional pore walls, and tunable frameworks. Incorporating COFs with chiral compounds can build chiral COFs (CCOFs), which have exhibited significant advantages in the chiral chemistry field. This review focuses on the applications of COFs for chiral catalysis, chiral separation, and chiral sensoring up to now. Furthermore, the synthesis and design strategies of CCOFs are also discussed in this article, since the COFs used in chiral chemistry are generally CCOFs. There also sums up the benefits and defects of COFs used in the chiral field and outlines future opportunities. The studies described in this review demonstrate not only the advantages of COFs in practical use but also novel solutions for the problems in the chirality area.
Keywords: catalysis; chiral separation; chirality; covalent organic frameworks; sensors.
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