<p>Covalent Organic Frameworks (COFs) are organic,
crystalline, highly porous materials attractive for applications such as gas
storage, gas separations, catalysis, contaminant adsorption and membrane
filtration. Activation of COFs removes adsorbed solvents and impurities, but
common methods for COF activation can result in collapse of porous structure
and loss of accessible surface areas. Here, we present a study of the impact of
solvent surface tension on the activation process and demonstrate that
activation using the ultralow surface tension solvent perfluorohexane (PFH) is
simple and effective for a range of COF materials. We synthesized six different
imine-based COFs through imine condensation reactions between tris(4-aminophenyl)
benzene (TAPB) or 2,4,6-tris(4-aminophenyl)-1,3,5-triazine (TAPT) and
multi-functional di- and tri-benzaldehydes with different aromatic
substituents. For each COF, we performed a solvent wash followed by vacuum
drying using six solvents varying in surface tension from 11.9 – 72.8 mN m<sup>-1</sup>.
Through powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) measurements combined with nitrogen
adsorption and desorption analysis, we found that some COF chemistries readily
lost their porosity during activation with higher surface tension solvents
while others were more robust. However, all COFs could be effectively activated
using PFH to produce materials with excellent crystallinity and high surface
areas, comparable to those for samples activated using supercritical CO<sub>2</sub>.
This work demonstrates that the solvent surface tension used during activation
has a strong impact on potential pore collapse, and activation using PFH
provides a simple and effective activation method to produce COFs with
excellent crystallinities and pore structures.</p>