Experimental and theoretical insight into the effect of fluorine substituents on the properties of azine linked covalent organic frameworks

Herein we report a combined experimental and computational study on the effect of fluorine atom incorporation on the materials properties of azine-linked COFs. We found that increasing the ratio of fluorinated to non-fluorinated monomers led to substantial improvements in both crystallinity and porosity. Computational models suggest that this improvement might be explained by a substantial energetic stabilization in the face-to-face stacking interaction of the fluorinated COF monomers.