Synthesis of Three-Dimensional Chiral Covalent Organic Frameworks Using Surfactant as Inducer in Water

Chiral covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have shown promising applications in asymmetric catalysis, enantiomer separation and chiral recognition due to their tunable structures and permanent porosity. Currently, synthesis of chiral COFs mainly relies on direct- synthesis method which requires asymmetric monomers to polymerize and crystallize with symmetric monomers and post-synthesis method which has been greatly limited to having complete reactions with the micro-/meso-sized pores of COFs. Recently, the synthesis of two-dimensional COFs by covalent replacement of chiral competitor has been reported. Herein, we present the synthesis of three types of 3D COFs with tunable chirality using chiral amino acid derivative surfactant as inducer in water under ambient conditions. The hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions between amino acid derivative surfactant and monomers as well as their precursors facilitate the transfer of the chirality.