Novel family of tunable woven-COFs from dynamic assembly of mixed tetrahedral metal–organic cages

Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) are one of the most recently discovered materials. They are crystalline porous polymers, first reported in 2005 by Yaghi and co-workers. The same group published in 2016 a first paper on "woven" COFs with exceptional flexibility and, in 2018, the first single crystal of COFs. Another remarkable class of materials are the Metal–Organic Cages (not to be confused with Metal Organic Frameworks). In this project we want to combine both technologies – for the first time – to form crystalline woven-COFs. This completely new class of material will be thoroughly researched and characterized. We are convinced that these crystalline woven-COFs will be multifunctional and will be usable in catalysis, sorption, molecular recognition and much more. We will explore these possible applications.