Covalent Organic Frameworks for Advanced Membrane Technology

Dear Colleagues,

The search for a high-performance ion-conducting membrane material is always the main focus in developing stable and attractive devices. Although varieties of materials, including perfluorinated and hydrocarbon-based polymers, have been explored very successfully, they still face a huge challenge in the long run. The fundamental requirement for a better membrane material is that it must withstand elevated temperatures and maintain reliable conducting properties under acidic and basic conditions. The discovery of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) shows enormous potential for developing advanced membrane technology. They offer remarkable physicochemical properties, including lightweight material built up of only organic molecules, and their heterogeneous networks can be tuned at the molecular level. These materials provide outstanding thermal stability and high conductivity, and they offer a highly porous crystalline framework with low density. Their high chemical stability, ease of functionalization, and relatively low cost make them choice materials. COFs have the potential to create an intriguing novel membrane with improved surface area and enhanced structural composition and dynamics.

This Special Issue aims to provide an open platform that allows authors to share their findings on the processing and integration of COFs as membrane materials for separation, purification, sensing, and energy storage devices. However, the biggest challenge in this field is to develop a free-standing COF-based membrane for device application. The inherent molecular design flexibility of COFs is an open route for a future direction that has already attracted many researchers in the past decade. Authors around the globe are welcome to publish their latest work on the synthesis, design, processing, and substrate integration of COFs. Membranes prepared using the mixed-matrix method and successfully implemented in some form of application are also be covered in this issue. This issue is mainly focused on COFs made up of 0D-, 1D-, 2D-, 3D-, and even 4D-based structures. The results obtained on dimension and its structural dynamic are not restricted to the practical reality only. Thus, theoretical results are also most welcome.

Dr. Rahul Singh
Guest Editor

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• Covalent organic framework membranes
• Crystalline polymers
• Nanostructure
• Porous materials
• Heterostructures
• Mixed-matrix polymer
• Metal-free nanocomposite
• Separation and purification
• Gas sensing
• Energy storage systems