A Rising Star from Two Worlds: Collaboration of COFs and ILs

The functional composites based on covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and ionic liquids (ILs) have stimulated increasing scientific interest owing to their complementary characteristics and cooperative activation. The tailorability and diversity of COFs and ILs render the COFs-ILs composites with predesignable structures, extendable syntheses, and customizable functionalities. Although the COFs-ILs composites have a promising development prospect, thus far, reviews regarding COFs-ILs composites have not been reported. This minireview summarizes the synthetic strategies including ionothermal synthesis and solvothermal synthesis; in addition, the application performances of meritorious COFs-ILs composites ranging from catalysis, electrochemistry, adsorption and separation, luminescence sensing, and bio-related analysis are briefly introduced. Furthermore, this minireview briefly emphasizes the opportunities and challenges faced toward rapidly developed but embryonic COFs-ILs composites. Altogether, it is expected that this minireview will spark the potential development of COFs-ILs composites from fundamental synthesis to cutting-edge applications.

Automated summary

Functional composites based on COFs and ILs have attracted increasing scientific interest due to their complementary characteristics and cooperative activation. These composites have predesignable structures, extendable syntheses, and customizable functionalities, with promising application prospects. Reviews on COFs-ILs composites have not been reported yet, but the potential and challenges can be seen through the summary of synthesis strategies and application performance.