The
design and facile preparation of ionic liquids (ILs)-functionalized
polymer materials is a hot research topic due to their potential wide
applications. Herein, taking the reaction advantage of a cyclic anhydride
with an alcoholic compound to atom-economically generate a carboxyl
ester pending a carboxylic acid moiety, porous organic framework (POF)
materials pending carboxylic acids and imidazolium-based ILs (CILs-POF
m
) were facile synthesized via the acylation
reaction of hydroxyl group-functionalized ILs with a styrene maleic
anhydride copolymer. The CILs-POF
m
material
properties were facilely adjusted by changing the molar ratio of the
mono-hydroxyl-functionalized ILs to the dihydroxyl-functionalized
ILs. CILs-POF
m
materials showed abundant
mesoporous structures with a porous diameter of approximately 23.83–48.16
nm, a surface area of up to 274.4 m2 g–1, and a superior CO2 adsorption capacity of 1.71–2.14
mmol g–1 at 273 K and 1 atm. As a proof of concept
application, the coupling reaction of epoxides with CO2 to produce cyclic carbonates was studied by using the CILs-POF
m
materials as catalysts under solvent-free
and co-catalyst-free conditions. The findings indicated that the CILs-POF0.5 exhibited a satisfactory catalytic activity and reusability
for a large scope of epoxides. Based on the experimental results and
density functional theory (DFT) simulations, a synergetic catalytic
mechanism was proposed based on the pended carboxylic acidic groups
and IL groups. This study not only provided an atom-economic strategy
to prepare POFs pending both carboxylic acids and ILs, but also showed
new insights into the design of functionalized POF materials with
great application potential in energy storage materials, separation,
and green catalysis.