Amorphous porous organic polymers containing main group elements

Abstract

Amorphous porous organic polymers (aPOPs) are a type of highly crosslinked polymers. These polymers are generally constructed from rigid organic building blocks, which have become an important subclass of POPs with diverse applications. In the early stage of development, a wide range of carbon-based building blocks and network forming chemistry afforded a large library of aPOPs with rich structures and properties. Recently, implanting main group elements with diverse geometric structures and electronic configurations into aPOPs has proven to be a useful tool to fine-tune the structures and properties of these polymers. Herein, we outline the recent advances in the field of main group (MG)-aPOPs where main-group elements either played unique roles in tuning the structures and properties of MG-aPOPs, or offered new strategies in the synthesis of MG-aPOPs. Furthermore, this Review discusses various challenges remaining in the field from the perspectives of synthetic strategies and characterization techniques, and presents some specific studies that may potentially address the challenges.

Incorporating main group elements into amorphous porous organic polymers has enabled the fine tuning of the structures and properties of these materials. Here, the authors review studies in which the geometric structures and electronic properties of main group elements have influenced material structures and properties, and whereby their incorporation has enabled new strategies to synthesize such materials.