Covalent Organic Frameworks (COF’s) form a family of polymeric materials composed only by light elements. The absence of metal atoms in their structure makes COF’s distinctly different compared to their relatives, Metal Organic Framework materials (MOF’s). Historically first COF structure (named COF-1) was reported back in 2005 by Cote et al., (Science 310 (2015) 1166). It consists of benzene rings linked by B3O3 into hexagon-shaped 2D sheets which are stacked into a layered structure, resembling in this respect the structure of graphite composed by graphene layers. By analogy with graphene the single layer of COF material could be named as COFene since it represents a true 2D material composed by carbon, hydrogen, boron and oxygen. Unlike graphite, COF-1 is porous material with relatively high surface area which makes it promising for various applications, e.g. for energy storage devices, as a sorbents for gas storage or for membranes. However, little was known about mechanical properties of COF’s or single layered COFenes except for few theoretical estimations. Unlike graphite or MOF’s, no high pressure studies were available for COFs. The study by A. Talyzin group from Umeå University (Sweden) performed at Elettra at the Xpress beamline and SOLEIL synchrotrons in collaboration with the Technical University of Dresden (Germany) and the Chalmers University (Sweden) is first to evaluate compressibility and pressure limits for stability of COF-1 structure.
>Read more on the Elettra website
Picture: schematics of the high pressure experiments involving diamond anvil cell
