Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

We report the design and synthesis of an imine-based two-dimensional covalent organic framework (2D COF) with a novel brick-wall topology by judiciously choosing a tritopic T-shaped building block and a ditopic linear linker. Unlike the main body of COF frameworks reported to-date, which consists of higher-symmetry 2D topologies, the unconventional layered brick-wall topology have only been proposed but never been realized experimentally. The brick-wall structure was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction analysis, FT-IR, solid state ¹³C NMR spectroscopy, nitrogen, and carbon oxide adsorption-desorption measurements as well as theoretical simulations. Our present work opens the door to the design of novel 2D COFs and will broaden the scope of emerging COF materials.