Application of covalent organic frameworks in environmental pollution management

With the quickly development of industry and energy requirement, huge amounts of various pollutants are inevitably released into rivers, lakes and underground water. The efficient elimination or in-situ solidification of pollutants in the environment is crucial to human health as the pollutants could be transferred to human body through food chain. The applications of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and COF-based nanomaterials for sorption-photocatalytic reduction for heavy metal ions or radionuclides from high valence to low valence, and sorption-photodegradation for organic contaminants were summarized. The interaction mechanism was evaluated and discussed from the results of batch results, advanced spectroscopic analysis and theoretical calculation at molecular level. The COFs and COF-based nanomaterials are promising materials for the effective elimination of pollutants with high sorption capacity and selectivity if COFs are constructed with required channels, defects and special functional groups/sites. In the end, the challenge for possible real application of COFs is described.