On the reticular construction concept of covalent organic frameworks

• Binit Lukose,
• Agnieszka Kuc,
• Johannes Frenzel and
• Thomas Heine

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2010, 1, 60–70, doi:10.3762/bjnano.1.8

• preservation throughout the assembly process are the key factors that lead to the design and synthesis of reticular structures. One of the first families of materials synthesized using reticular chemistry were the so-called Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) [4]. They are composed of metal-oxide connectors, which

• are covalently bound to organic linkers. The coordination versatility of constituent metal ions along with the functional diversity of organic linker molecules has created immense possibilities. The immense potential of MOFs is facilitated by the fact that all building blocks are inexpensive chemicals

• , and that the synthesis can be carried out solvothermally. MOFs are commercially available, and the scale up of production is continuing. Since the discovery of MOFs, many other crystalline frameworks have been synthesized using reticular chemistry, such as Metal-Organic Polyhedra (MOP) [5], Zeolite