Amorphous porous organic polymers containing main group elements

Amorphous porous organic polymers (aPOPs) are a type of highly crosslinked polymers. These polymers are generally constructed from rigid organic building blocks, which have become an important subclass of POPs with diverse applications. In the early stage of development, a wide range of carbon-based building blocks and network forming chemistry afforded a large library of aPOPs with rich structures and properties. Recently, implanting main group elements with diverse geometric structures and electronic configurations into aPOPs has proven to be a useful tool to fine-tune the structures and properties of these polymers. Herein, we outline the recent advances in the field of main group (MG)-aPOPs where main-group elements either played unique roles in tuning the structures and properties of MG-aPOPs, or offered new strategies in the synthesis of MG-aPOPs. Furthermore, this Review discusses various challenges remaining in the field from the perspectives of synthetic strategies and characterization techniques, and presents some specific studies that may potentially address the challenges.