Amino- and sulfo-bifunctionalized hyper-crosslinked organic nanotube frameworks as efficient catalysts for one-pot cascade reactions

In this paper, novel amino- and sulfo-bifunctionalized hyper-crosslinked organic nanotube frameworks (H-ONTFs) were directly prepared by templating core-shell bottlebrush copolymers via a Friedel-Crafts (F-C) alkylation reaction, in which the acidic sites were anchored into the wall of nanotubes and basic sites were introduced onto the inner layer wall of nanotubes through a rational molecular design strategy. The resulting acid-base bifunctionalized H-ONTFs showed excellent catalytic activities for one-pot deacetalization-Knoevenagel cascade reactions due to their open-ended structure, large surface area and good multi-porosity interconnectivity.