Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are an emerging class of porous materials with potential for gas storage and organic photovoltaics. Their development has been hampered because the building blocks most commonly used to make them are poorly soluble and prone to oxidation.
Now US chemists have developed a general strategy for making COFs from stable, soluble starting materials. They also gained insight into the transformation’s mechanism, which should help scientists predict crystallisation conditions and prepare materials with improved properties.
Find out more in A mechanistic study of Lewis acid-catalyzed covalent organic framework formation by William Dichtel and colleagues.