Multifunctional Microporous Polymer Networks by Oxidative Polymerizations

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Microporous Polymer Networks (MPNs) are an emerging new class of functional materials, which combine several advantages of conventional porous matter, like zeolites, activated charcoals or metal¿organic frameworks. Due to a contorted but rigid structure, these polymers exhibit exceptionally high porosities, while their covalent organic nature ensures lightweight and high thermal and chemical stability. As solely composed of organic compounds, an exquisite control over the chemical nature of the large accessible surface areas as well as the physical properties of the resulting networks is possible. All these properties make microporous polymers interesting for a number of applications, especially for gas storage and separation, but recently also their great potential in energy applications or for organic electronics has been shown. Finally, MPNs open new prospects in the field of catalysis, as various organic functionalities can be introduced as maintaining parts of the polymer backbones. This project will develop MPNs synthesized by oxidative polymerization of novel, functional thiophene-, carbazole- or pyrrole- monomers. Networks with well-defined porosity, surface area, microstructure and morphology, as well as distribution of functional groups will be synthesized and tested for their gas sorption and electronic properties. For the first time, we will prepare multifunctional MPNs by co-polymerization of carefully chosen monomers and apply them as catalyst for important reactions such as photocatalytic water splitting and diverse other reactions in which the (enantio)selectivity will be tailored by a bio-inspired approach namely the introduction of active metal sites in functional organic environments.