Three-dimensional microporous and mesoporous covalent organic frameworks based on cubic building units.

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have attracted extensive interest due to their unique structures and various applications. However, structural diversities are still limited, which greatly restricts the development of COF materials. Herein, we report two unusual cubic (8-connected) building units and their derived 3D imine-linked COFs with nets, JUC-588 and JUC-589. Owing to these unique building blocks with different sizes, the obtained COFs can be tuned to be microporous or mesoporous structures with high surface areas (2728 m g for JUC-588 and 2482 m g for JUC-589) and promising thermal and chemical stabilities. Furthermore, the high selectivity of CO/N and CO/CH, excellent H uptakes, and efficient dye adsorption are observed. This research thus provides a general strategy for constructing stable 3D COF architectures with adjustable pores improving the valency of rigid building blocks.