Enhancing the Crystallinity of Keto-enamine-Linked Covalent Organic Frameworks through an in situ Protection-Deprotection Strategy

β-Keto-enamine-linked 2D covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as highly robust materials, showing significant potential for practical applications. However, the exclusive reliance on 1,3,5-triformylphloroglucinol (Tp aldehyde) in the design of such COFs often results in the production of non-porous amorphous polymers when combined with certain amine building blocks. Attempts to adjust the crystallinity and porosity by a modulator approach are inefficient because Tp aldehyde readily forms stable β-keto-enamine-linked monomers/oligomers with various aromatic amines through an irreversible keto-enol tautomerization process. Our research employed a unique protection-deprotection strategy to enhance the crystallinity and porosity of β-keto-enamine-linked squaramide-based 2D COFs. Advanced solid-state NMR studies, including 1D ¹³ C CPMAS, ¹ H fast MAS, ¹⁵ N CPMAS, 2D ¹³ C-¹ H correlation, ¹ H-¹ H DQ-SQ, and ¹⁴ N-¹ H HMQC NMR were used to establish the atomic-level connectivity within the resultant COFs. The Tp_OMe -Sqm COFs synthesized utilizing this strategy have a surface area of 487 m²  g^-1 , significantly higher than similar COFs synthesized using Tp aldehyde. Furthermore, detailed time-dependent PXRD, solid-state ¹³ C CPMAS NMR, and theoretical DFT studies shed more light on the crystallization and linkage conversion processes in these 2D COFs. Ultimately, we applied this protection-deprotection method to construct novel keto-enamine-linked highly porous organic polymers with a surface area of 1018 m²  g^-1 .