Despite the noteworthy progress made in the nanotubular architectures with well-de ned lengths and diameter, the synthesis of a purely covalent bonded organic nanotube, so far, proved to be elusive. Our work includes a hitherto unavailable structure, "Covalent Organic Nanotubes (CONTs)," to the repertoire. Strong covalent bonds between C, N, and O imparts high thermal and chemical stability of CONTs. This novel bottom-up approach provides an edge over the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in functionalization, synthetic conditions, and porosity. CONT-1 exhibits a BET surface area of 321 m2g-1. These exible CONTs intertwine with each other. The computational studies establish the role of solvent as the critical driving force for this type of convolution. Upon ultrasonication, the intertwined CONT-1 coil to form the toroidal superstructure.

The development of synthetic routes for the formation of robust porous organic polymers (POPs) with well‐defined nanoscale morphology is fundamentally significant for their practical applications. The thermodynamic characteristics that arise from reversible covalent bonding impart intrinsic chemical instability in the polymers, thereby impeding their overall potential. Herein, a unique strategy is reported to overcome the stability issue by designing robust imidazole‐linked POPs via tandem reversible/irreversible bond formation. Incorporating inherent rigidity into the secondary building units leads to robust microporous polymeric nanostructures with hollow‐spherical morphologies. An in‐depth analysis by extensive solid‐state NMR (1D and 2D) study on 1H, 13C, and 14N nuclei elucidates the bonding and reveals the high purity of the newly designed imidazole‐based POPs. The nitrogen‐rich polymeric nanostructures are further used as metal‐free electrocatalysts for water splitting. In particular, the rigid POPs show excellent catalytic activity toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with long‐term durability. Among them, the most efficient OER electrocatalyst (TAT‐TFBE) requires 314 mV of overpotential to drive 10 mA cm−2 current density, demonstrating its superiority over state‐of‐the‐art catalysts (RuO2 and IrO2).

No abstract

Despite the noteworthy progress made in the nanotubular architectures with well-defined lengths and diameter, the synthesis of a purely covalent bonded organic nanotube, so far, proved to be elusive. Our work includes a hitherto unavailable structure, "Covalent Organic Nanotubes (CONTs)," to the repertoire. Strong covalent bonds between C, N, and O imparts high thermal and chemical stability of CONTs. This novel bottom-up approach provides an edge over the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in functionalization, synthetic conditions, and porosity. CONT-1 exhibits a BET surface area of 321 m2g-1. These flexible CONTs intertwine with each other. The computational studies establish the role of solvent as the critical driving force for this type of convolution. Upon ultrasonication, the intertwined CONT-1 coil to form the toroidal superstructure.