Targeted synthesis of an electroactive organic framework

A new strategy for targeted design and synthesis of an electroactive microporous organic molecular sieve (JUC-Z2) is described. Experiment demonstrated that such a targeted synthesis approach to achieve phenyl–phenyl coupling was a controllable process and predominately generated two-dimensional polymer sheets, significantly different from the traditional chemical or electrochemical oxidation methods to prepare conducting polymers. Successive self-assembly leads to a lamellar organic framework comprised of stacked polymer sheets with an hcb topology. JUC-Z2 was found to have a well-defined uniform micropore distribution (∼1.2 nm), a large surface area (BET = 2081 m2 g−1) and high physicochemical stability (>440 °C). After doping with I2, JUC-Z2 exhibits typical p-type semiconductive properties. As the first example of an electroactive organic framework, JUC-Z2 possesses a unique ability of electrochemical ion recognition, arising from the synergistic function of the uniform micropores and the N-atom redox site.