Ambient aqueous-phase synthesis of covalent organic frameworks for degradation of organic pollutants

The development of a mild, low cost and green synthetic route for covalent organic frameworks (COFs) is highly desirable in order to open the door for practical uses of this new family of crystalline porous solids. Herein, we report a general and facile strategy to prepare a series of microporous or mesoporous COFs by a β-ketoenamine based Michael addition–elimination reaction in aqueous systems at ambient temperature and pressure. This synthesis method not only produces highly crystalline and porous COFs, but also can be carried out with a high reaction rate (only 30 min), high yields (as high as 93%) and large-scale preparation (up to 5.0 g). Furthermore, an Fe(ii)-doped COF shows impressive performance in the oxidative degradation of organic pollutants in aqueous medium. This research thus provides a promising pathway to large-scale green preparation of COFs and their potential application in environmental remediation.