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Environmental transformation of covalent organic frameworks

Nature Reviews Materials (2026)Cite this article

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Covalent organic frameworks promise breakthroughs in water treatment, separations and photocatalysis. Yet their real-world performance is governed by sequence-dependent transformations — hydrolysis, photo-oxidation and defect-driven fragmentation — that can silently reshape pore chemistry and release mobile products. Transformation atlases built from laboratory and synchrotron and/or neutron characterization can now predict these trajectories and enable safer, more durable design.

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Acknowledgements

S.C. acknowledges a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Independent Research Fellowship (grant no. NE/B000187/1) for supporting this work.

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  1. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Swaroop Chakraborty

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  1. Swaroop Chakraborty
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Correspondence to Swaroop Chakraborty.

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Chakraborty, S. Environmental transformation of covalent organic frameworks. Nat Rev Mater (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-026-00908-4

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