Tailoring morphological and chemical properties of covalent triazine frameworks for dual CO2 and H2 adsorption

The development of functional porous samples suitable as gas-adsorption materials is a key challenge of modern materials chemistry to face with global warming or issues related to renewable energy-storage solutions. Herein, a set of five Covalent Triazine Frameworks (CTFs) featured by high specific surface area (SSA, up to 3201 m2 g-1) and N content as high as 12.2 wt% have been prepared through a rational synthetic strategy and exploited with respect to their gas uptake properties. Among CTFs from this series, CTF-pDCB/DCIHT (4) combines ideal morphological and chemico-physical properties for CO2 and H2 adsorption. Noteworthy, besides ranking among CTFs with the highest CO2 adsorption capacity reported so far (up to 5.38 mmol g-1 at 273 K and 1 bar), 4 displays a H2 excess uptake at 77 K of 2.84 and 5.0 wt% at 1 and 20 bar, respectively, outperforming all CTF materials and 2D Porous Organic Polymers of the state-of-the-art.