Dehydrative Formation of Isosorbide from Sorbitol over Poly(ionic liquid)-Covalent Organic Framework Hybrids

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces 2021-01, Vol.13 (1), p.552
• Main Authors: Du, Yi-Ran, Xu, Bao-Hua, Xia, Shi-Ping, Ding, Guang-Rong, Zhang, Suo-Jiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c18105

In this study, the covalent bonding of linear poly(ionic liquid)s (PILs) with covalent organic frameworks (COFs) was accessed by copolymerization of a vinyl-decorated COF with 4-vinylbenzyl chloride, followed by quaternization with tertiary amines. The resultant PIL-COF composite by anchoring a proper content of vinyl sites on the COF-based comonomer retains the crystallinity and porosity, thereby facilitating access of the reactants to the catalytic active sites. As a proof of concept, the dehydrative transformation of sorbitol into isosorbide was selected as a benchmark reaction, whose rate improved significantly in the presence of PIL-COF-0.33 compared with those of individual components and the mesoporous PIL counterpart due to uniform pore sizes and flexible linear catalytic chains. In addition, the hybrids bearing a chemical cross-linkage between PILs and COFs are robust, and PIL-COF-0.33 can be recovered and reused for 10 runs without significant reactivity loss. These findings provide the basis for a novel design concept for achieving both efficient and stable IL catalysis.