Pyrene-based covalent organic frameworks and blue light can be used to make imines in an environmentally friendly way, Ghent researchers write in ChemCatChem. 

Producing useful molecules in a sustainable way is high on the priority list of many chemists. That is why Linyang Wang, Pascal Van Der Voort and colleagues at Ghent University set out to find photocatalysts that use light to couple amines to imines, structures that are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry because of their reactivity and antibacterial effects. They chose a pyrene base and created three different versions of what are known as COFs.