Novel Top-Down Synthesis of Covalent Organic Frameworks for Uranyl Ion Capture

Seeking novel synthetic methodology to further promote the preparation of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) has long been our pursuit but remains a challenging task. Herein, we report a new protocol, a top-down approach for facile synthesis of COFs. Interestingly, our top-down route can impressively generate extended COFs by reticular chemistry which cannot be accessed by the commonly used bottom-up synthesis route. Notably, our top-down method also has outstanding advantages in achieving what we are pursuing in COFs, such as heteropores and multiple components. The current findings not only dramatically reduce the difficulty of COF synthesis but also are generally applicable for the synthesis of complicated COFs constructed from different building blocks and linkages.