Conjugated microporous polymers

Abstract

Conjugated microporous polymers are of great interest because they have potential to combine high surface areas in the dry state with physical properties relevant to organic electronics. A series of recent reports has shown that materials such as poly(aryleneethynylene)s (PAEs), poly(phenylene butadiynylene)s, poly(phenylene vinylene), poly( p-phenylene)s, polysilanes, polyanilines, and polytriazines can be produced as microporous networks with apparent Brunauer Emmett Teller surface areas of more than 1000m2 g-1 in some cases. Micropore size and surface area can be synthetically fine tuned in amorphous PAE polymers and copolymers, something which was previously thought to be the preserve of ordered crystalline materials such as metal organic frameworks. We review in this Research News article recent progress made by our group and others with particular emphasis on the possible future applications of these materials. © 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.