Covalent organic frameworks: Multifunctional material in analytical chemistry

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as a new kind of crystalline porous material constructed from organic building blocks through dynamic covalent bonds. The desired COFs can be synthesized through the condensation of pre-designed building blocks. With multitudinously unique characteristics, such as tunable aperture, high specific surface area, excellent stability, enzyme-like activities, and fluorescent properties, COFs have found widespread applications in the field of analytical chemistry. This review introduces the structure and properties of COFs to illustrate how they can be purposefully constructed according to specific application requirements. Subsequently, we detail the analytical applications and advancements of COFs in sample pretreatment, separation science, and chemical sensing. The enzyme-like activities of COFs and the sensing strategies of COFs-based nanozymes are also summarized. Furthermore, potential challenges and further development prospects are also discussed for the further advancement of COFs in analytical applications.