Restricted Growth of Vinylene-Linked Covalent Organic Frameworks along Two-Dimensional Plane Using Heterogeneous Catalysis

The vinylene-linked covalent organic frameworks (viCOFs) have been generally synthesized in the presence of homogeneous catalysts such as KOH or trifluoroacetic acid. However, highly ordered viCOFs cannot always be obtained due to the uncommitted growth of viCOF layers in the homogeneous system with ubiquitous catalysts. Here, we propose a scalable protocol to restrict the growth of viCOFs along the two-dimensional (2D) plane by introducing a heterogeneous catalyst, polyoxometalates (POMs). With the unique Brønsted alkalinity and catalytic surface, POMs induce the growth of 2D viCOF layers along the surface of the catalytic substrate and restrain the generation of out-of-plane branches. Based on this protocol, six typical 2D viCOFs with high crystallinity and porosity were synthesized within a shorter reaction time as compared with the reported works using the common homogeneous catalysts for viCOF synthesis. On the basis of the density functional theory calculations and experimental results, a bottom intercalation growth pattern of viCOFs was revealed during the heterogeneous reaction. The unique growth pattern greatly promotes the orderly assembly of monomers, thus shortening the reaction time and improving the crystallinity of viCOFs. Furthermore, this heterogeneous catalysis strategy is suitable for the gram-scale preparation of 2D viCOFs. These results provide a novel avenue for the synthesis of high-quality viCOFs and may bring new insights into the synthetic methodology of COFs.