Abstract

Recent findings in our group demonstrated the feasibility of simple ultrasonication procedures to obtain graphene-like materials from bulk layered Covalent Organic Frameworks.1 This top-down approach provides a cost effective and scalable method for the preparation of novel 2D-materials. Inspired by this breakthrough, in this communication we report our efforts to get a deeper understanding of the factors that can have an effect on the exfoliation of laminar polymers. Accordingly, we studied such process on analogous layered materials with a gradual change on porosity. This series of rigid microporous poly(aryleneethynylene) (PAE) offer a chemically robust framework based on carbon-carbon bonds with conjugated π-electronic structure.2 Thus, exfoliation of this kind of polymers by sonication procedure results on the obtention of nanolayer structures as observed by AFM and TEM measurements. Systematic AFM analysis reveals that the degree of exfoliation depends on the polymer architecture, being observed thinner layers when the pore size decreases. 1.- I. Berlanga, M. L. Ruiz-Gonzalez, J. M. Gonzalez-Calbet, J. L. G. Fierro, R. Mas-Balleste and F. Zamora, Small, 2011, 7, 1207-1211. 2.- J.-Y. Jiang, F. Su, A. Trewin, C. D. Wood, H. Niu, J. T. A. Jones, Y. Z. Khimyak and A. I. Cooper, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2008, 130, 7710. Submitted to Chemical Communications. Isadora Berlanga, Rubén Mas-Ballesté and Félix Zamora. (2012).