Rigid struts containing crown ether units (benzo-12-crown-4 and benzo-15-crown-5) coordinate with Zn4O(CO2)6 clusters, affording two different interpenetrated metal–organicframeworks (MOFs), i.e., benzo-12-crown-4-based MOF presents a “close contact” interpenetration mode, while the benzo-15-crown-5-based one has a “body center” interpenetration mode.
We herein present a new family of crown ether-based covalentorganicframeworks (CE-COFs) for the first time. The CE-COFs show excellent phase-transfer catalytic performance in various nucleophilic substitution reactions.