Electron Beam Irradiation as a General Approach for the Rapid Synthesis of Covalent Organic Frameworks under Ambient Conditions

Abstract

Crystalline porous materials such as covalent organic frame-works (COFs) are advanced materials to tackle challenges of catalysis and separation in industrial processes. Their synthetic routes often require elevated temperatures, closed systems with high pressure, and long reaction time which hampers their in-dustrial applications. Here, we use a traditionally unperceived strategy to assemble COFs by electron beam irradiation with controlled received dosage, contrasting sharply with the previ-ous observation that radiation damages the crystallinity of sol-ids. Such synthesis by electron beam irradiation can be achieved under ambient condition within minutes, and the pro-cess is amendable for large-scale productions. The intense and targeted energy input on reactants leads to new reaction path-ways that favor COFs formation with nearly quantitative yields. This strategy is applicable not only to known COFs, but also to new series of flexible COFs that are difficult to obtain using traditional methods.