C&EN, "Are COFs the new MOFs?"

[Astronuc]

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) may offer advantages over Nobel Prize–winning metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).
https://cen.acs.org/business/COFs-new-MOFs/104/web/2026/02?sc=260203_sc_eng_fb_cen_boosted

Chemists who hadn’t heard of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) before last October no doubt learned about them when the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three researchers who helped develop the high-surface-area materials.

Discovered in the 1990s, MOFs are a family of porous crystalline solids composed of metal ions or clusters joined by organic linkers. By tailoring the metal and organic building blocks, researchers have made MOFs with extremely high internal surface area that can store hydrogen, capture carbon dioxide, harvest moisture from desert air, and remove contaminants from water.

But the metals in MOFs—mainly transition metals like copper, zinc, and cobalt—are heavy and can be toxic, according to a recent analysis by CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society that specializes in scientific knowledge management. (C&EN is published by ACS.)

Some researchers are exploring an alternative to MOFs called covalent organic frameworks (COFs). They are typically composed of two organic monomers that are systematically linked to form extended crystalline networks. Made entirely of light elements, COFs have outstanding chemical and thermal stability, the CAS analysis says.

New areas for investigation!

Industrial development of COFs is not as advanced, but companies involved with MOFs are keeping an eye on them. Ben Hernandez, the CEO of Numat Technologies, which has been developing MOFs for industrial applications for more than a decade, says the COF field has advanced “meaningfully” in recent years.

“Encouragingly, COFs have the potential to operate in different applications spaces than MOFs, expanding the opportunity for industrial impact of these related material-technology platforms," he tells C&EN in an email.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covalent_organic_framework

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00550

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43586-022-00181-z

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/cs/d4cs00521j