Project description:Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) plays a key role in analysis and sensing because of its high sensitivity and low background. Its wide applications are however limited by a lack of highly tunable ECL luminophores. Here we develop a scalable method to design ECL emitters of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) in aqueous medium by simultaneously restricting the donor and acceptor to the COFs' tight electron configurations and constructing high-speed charge transport networks through olefin linkages. This design allows efficient intramolecular charge transfer for strong ECL, and no exogenous poisonous co-reactants are needed. Olefin-linked donor-acceptor conjugated COFs, systematically synthesized by combining non-ECL active monomers with C2v or C3v symmetry, exhibit strong ECL signals, which can be boosted by increasing the chain length and conjugation of monomers. The present concept demonstrates that the highly efficient COF-based ECL luminophores can be precisely designed, providing a promising direction toward COF-based ECL phosphors.
Project description:Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) micro-reactors with enhanced intensity and extreme stability were first established by the assembly of tris(2,2'-bipyridyl) ruthenium(ii) (Ru(bpy)3 2+) onto covalent organic frameworks (COFs), in which a type of imine-linked COF (denoted as COF-LZU1) was employed as a model for ECL micro-reactors. Compared with the dominant ECL system of Ru(bpy)3 2+/tri-n-propylamine (TPrA) (TPrA as a co-reactant), the intensity of the COF-LZU1 micro-reactor-based electrode was significantly increased nearly 5-fold under the same experimental conditions, which is unprecedented in other Ru(bpy)3 2+-based ECL systems. This enhancement can be attributed to the large surface area, delimited space, and stable and hydrophobic porous structure of COF-LZU1, which not only enabled a huge amount of Ru(bpy)3 2+ to be loaded in/on COF-LZU1, but also enriched a large amount of TPrA from the aqueous solution into its inner hydrophobic cavity due to the lipophilicity of TPrA. More importantly, with its hydrophobic porous nanochannels, COF-LZU1 could act as micro-reactors to provide a delimited reaction micro-environment for the electrochemical oxidation of TPrA and the survival of TPrA˙, achieving significant confinement-enhanced ECL. To prove this principle, these Ru@COF-LZU1 micro-reactors were developed to prepare an ECL aptasensor for aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) detection with a wide detection range and a low detection limit. Overall, this work is the first report in which ECL micro-reactors are constructed with COFs to enhance the intensity and stability of the Ru(bpy)3 2+-based ECL system, and opens a new route to the design of other ECL micro-reactors for bioanalysis applications.
Project description:The control of charge transfer between radical anions and cations is a promising way for decoding the emission mechanism in electrochemiluminescence (ECL) systems. Herein, a type of donor-acceptor (D-A) covalent organic framework (COF) with triphenylamine and triazine units is designed as a highly efficient ECL emitter with tunable intrareticular charge transfer (IRCT). The D-A COF demonstrates 123 folds enhancement in ECL intensity compared with its benzene-based COF with small D-A contrast. Further, the COF's crystallinity- and protonation-modulated ECL behaviors confirm ECL dependence on intrareticular charge transfer between donor and acceptor units, which is rationalized by density functional theory. Significantly, dual-peaked ECL patterns of COFs are achieved through an IRCT mediated competitive oxidation mechanism: the coreactant-mediated oxidation at lower potential and the direct oxidation at higher potential. This work provides a new fundamental and approach to improve the ECL efficiency for designing next-generation ECL devices.
Project description:Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) define a versatile structural paradigm combining attractive properties such as crystallinity, porosity, and chemical and structural modularity which are valuable for various applications. For the incorporation of COFs into optoelectronic devices, efficient charge carrier transport and intrinsic conductivity are often essential. Here, we report the synthesis of two imine-linked two-dimensional COFs, WTA and WBDT, featuring a redox-active Wurster-type motif based on the twisted tetragonal N,N,N',N'-tetraphenyl-1,4-phenylenediamine node. By condensing this unit with either terephthalaldehyde (TA) or benzodithiophene dialdehyde (BDT), COFs featuring a dual-pore kagome-type structure were obtained as highly crystalline materials with large specific surface areas and mesoporosity. In addition, the experimentally determined high conduction band energies of both COFs render them suitable candidates for oxidative doping. The incorporation of a benzodithiophene linear building block into the COF allows for high intrinsic macroscopic conductivity. Both anisotropic and average isotropic electrical conductivities were determined with van der Pauw measurements using oriented films and pressed pellets, respectively. Furthermore, the impact of different dopants such as F4TCNQ, antimony pentachloride and iodine on the conductivities of the resulting doped COFs was studied. By using the strong organic acceptor F4TCNQ, a massive increase of the radical cation density (up to 0.5 radicals per unit cell) and long-term stable electrical conductivity as high as 3.67 S m-1 were achieved for the anisotropic transport in an oriented film, one of the highest for any doped COF to date. Interestingly, no significant differences between isotropic and anisotropic charge transport were found in films and pressed pellets. This work expands the list of possible building nodes for electrically conducting COFs from planar systems to twisted geometries. The achievement of high and stable electrical conductivity paves the way for possible applications of new COFs in organic (opto)electronics.
Project description:Electrocatalytic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is regarded as an effective yet challenging approach for the degradation of urea in wastewater into harmless N2 and CO2. To overcome the sluggish kinetics, catalytically active sites should be rationally designed to maneuver the multiple key steps of intermediate adsorption and desorption. Herein, we demonstrate that metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can provide an ideal platform for tailoring binary active sites to facilitate the rate-determining steps, achieving remarkable electrocatalytic activity toward UOR. Specifically, the MOF (namely, NiMn0.14-BDC) based on Ni/Mn sites and terephthalic acid (BDC) ligands exhibits a low voltage of 1.317 V to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm-2. As a result, a high turnover frequency (TOF) of 0.15 s-1 is achieved at a voltage of 1.4 V, which enables a urea degradation rate of 81.87% in 0.33 M urea solution. The combination of experimental characterization with theoretical calculation reveals that the Ni and Mn sites play synergistic roles in maneuvering the evolution of urea molecules and key reaction intermediates during the UOR, while the binary Ni/Mn sites in MOF offer the tunability for electronic structure and d-band center impacting on the intermediate evolution. This work provides important insights into active site design by leveraging MOF platform and represents a solid step toward highly efficient UOR with MOF-based electrocatalysts.
Project description:Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are two- or three-dimensional (2D or 3D) polymer networks with designed topology and chemical functionality, permanent porosity, and high surface areas. These features are potentially useful for a broad range of applications, including catalysis, optoelectronics, and energy storage devices. But current COF syntheses offer poor control over the material's morphology and final form, generally providing insoluble and unprocessable microcrystalline powder aggregates. COF polymerizations are often performed under conditions in which the monomers are only partially soluble in the reaction solvent, and this heterogeneity has hindered understanding of their polymerization or crystallization processes. Here we report homogeneous polymerization conditions for boronate ester-linked, 2D COFs that inhibit crystallite precipitation, resulting in stable colloidal suspensions of 2D COF nanoparticles. The hexagonal, layered structures of the colloids are confirmed by small-angle and wide-angle X-ray scattering, and kinetic characterization provides insight into the growth process. The colloid size is modulated by solvent conditions, and the technique is demonstrated for four 2D boronate ester-linked COFs. The diameter of individual COF nanoparticles in solution is monitored and quantified during COF growth and stabilization at elevated temperature using in situ variable-temperature liquid cell transmission electron microscopy imaging, a new characterization technique that complements conventional bulk scattering techniques. Solution casting of the colloids yields a free-standing transparent COF film with retained crystallinity and porosity, as well as preferential crystallite orientation. Collectively this structural control provides new opportunities for understanding COF formation and designing morphologies for device applications.
Project description:Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are an emerging class of highly tuneable crystalline, porous materials. Here we report the first COFs that change their electronic structure reversibly depending on the surrounding atmosphere. These COFs can act as solid-state supramolecular solvatochromic sensors that show a strong colour change when exposed to humidity or solvent vapours, dependent on vapour concentration and solvent polarity. The excellent accessibility of the pores in vertically oriented films results in ultrafast response times below 200 ms, outperforming commercially available humidity sensors by more than an order of magnitude. Employing a solvatochromic COF film as a vapour-sensitive light filter, we demonstrate a fast humidity sensor with full reversibility and stability over at least 4000 cycles. Considering their immense chemical diversity and modular design, COFs with fine-tuned solvatochromic properties could broaden the range of possible applications for these materials in sensing and optoelectronics.
Project description:Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as a kind of rising star materials in photocatalysis. However, their photocatalytic activities are restricted by the high photogenerated electron-hole pairs recombination rate. Herein, a novel metal-free 2D/2D van der Waals heterojunction, composed of a two-dimensional (2D) COF with ketoenamine linkage (TpPa-1-COF) and 2D defective hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), is successfully constructed through in situ solvothermal method. Benefitting from the presence of VDW heterojunction, larger contact area and intimate electronic coupling can be formed between the interface of TpPa-1-COF and defective h-BN, which make contributions to promoting charge carriers separation. The introduced defects can also endow the h-BN with porous structure, thus providing more reactive sites. Moreover, the TpPa-1-COF will undergo a structural transformation after being integrated with defective h-BN, which can enlarge the gap between the conduction band position of the h-BN and TpPa-1-COF, and suppress electron backflow, corroborated by experimental and density functional theory calculations results. Accordingly, the resulting porous h-BN/TpPa-1-COF metal-free VDW heterojunction displays outstanding solar energy catalytic activity for water splitting without co-catalysts, and the H2 evolution rate can reach up to 3.15 mmol g-1 h-1, which is about 67 times greater than that of pristine TpPa-1-COF, also surpassing that of state-of-the-art metal-free-based photocatalysts reported to date. In particular, it is the first work for constructing COFs-based heterojunctions with the help of h-BN, which may provide new avenue for designing highly efficient metal-free-based photocatalysts for H2 evolution.
Project description:Exploring new linkage chemistry for covalent organic frameworks (COFs) provides a strong driving force to promote the development of this emerging class of crystalline porous organic materials. Herein we report a strategy to synthesize COFs with azo linkage, one of the most important functional unit in materials science but having not yet been exploited as a linkage of COFs. This strategy is developed on the basis of in situ linker exchange, by which imine-linked COFs are completely transformed into azo-linked COFs (Azo-COFs). Moreover, distinct properties of Azo-COFs from their corresponding imine-linked precursors are observed, indicating unique property of Azo-COFs. This strategy provides a useful approach to develop new linkage chemistry for COFs. It also has established a synthetic method for azo-linked COFs, which not only enriches the family of COFs but also offers a platform to explore properties and applications of this class of crystalline porous conjugated polymers.
Project description:Synthetic control over chirality and function is the crowning achievement for metal-organic frameworks, but the same level of control has not been achieved for covalent organic frameworks (COFs). Here we demonstrate chiral COFs (CCOFs) can be crystallized from achiral organic precursors by chiral catalytic induction. A total of nine two-dimensional CCOFs are solvothermally prepared by imine condensations of the C3-symmetric 1,3,5-triformylphloroglucinol (Tp) with diamine or triamine linkers in the presence of catalytic amount of (R)- or (S)-1-phenylethylamine. Homochirality of these CCOFs results from chiral catalyst-induced immobilization of threefold-symmetric tris(N-salicylideneamine) cores with a propeller-like conformation of one single handedness during crystallization. The CCOF-TpTab showed high enantioselectivity toward chiral carbohydrates in fluorescence quenching and, after postsynthetic modification of enaminone groups located in chiral channels with Cu(II) ions, it can also be utilized as a heterogeneous catalyst for the asymmetric Henry reaction of nitroalkane with aldehydes.