Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (9): 2395-2404.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(22)64127-5

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Thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole-based covalent organic framework microspheres for blue light photocatalytic selective oxidation of amines with O2

Fulin Zhang, Xia Li, Xiaoyun Dong, Huimin Hao, Xianjun Lang*()   

  1. Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences and Hubei Key Lab on Organic and Polymeric Optoelectronic Materials, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, Hubei, China
  • Received:2022-03-29 Accepted:2022-05-05 Online:2022-09-18 Published:2022-07-20
  • Contact: Xianjun Lang
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(22072108);National Natural Science Foundation of China(21773173)

Abstract:

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) with photoactive units have attracted significant interest in visible light photocatalysis and can present a metal-free scenario for activating O2. As a typical photoactive unit, thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole (TzTz) has rarely been added to COFs. However, circumventing the low reversibility of TzTz, it could be embedded into the building blocks beforehand, along with other bonds like β-ketoenamine in forming COFs. TzTz was embedded into 1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamine (BD) using this approach to produce 4,4′-(TzTz-2,5-diyl)dianiline (DTz). Under organobase-modulated solvothermal conditions, combining 1,3,5-triformylphloroglucinol (Tp) with BD and DTz resulted in the production of β-ketoenamine-linked TpBD-COF and TpDTz-COF. Both TpDTz-COF and TpBD-COF are microspheres. TpDTz-COF possessed more adequate separation and charge migration than TpBD-COF. This resulted in superior performance for the blue light photocatalytic selective oxidation of benzylamine with O2. Furthermore, with O2 as the main oxidant, a wealth of benzylamines could be converted into imines over TpDTz-COF. Mechanistic investigations substantiate that oxidation of benzylamines obeys an electron transfer pathway, in which superoxide anion (O2•-) is the crucial reactive oxygen species. This study highlights the superiority of TzTz-embedded COFs in developing effective photocatalytic systems for organic transformations.

Key words: Covalent organic framework, Thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole, Visible light, Photocatalysis, Selective oxidation