Research

As a novel class of crystalline porous materials, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have attracted broad interest and found many potential applications in sensing, gas adsorption and separation, catalysis, energy storage, optoelectronic devices and so on. Based on the extension of the framework dimensions, COFs can be mainly categorized into two-dimensional structures (2D COFs) or three-dimensional networks (3D COFs). 3D COFs have unique advantages in the field of various applications because of their large specific surface area and numerous open sites. However, the development of 3D COFs has been progressed slowly due to the difficulties in the synthesis and structural characterization, and there have been few related studies since the first report in 2007. Our group is focusing on the creation and functionalization of 3D COFs, from molecular design, to framework construction, and finally to study its functional applications. For more details, please see "Publications".