A series of new ladder polymers are synthesized from nucleophilic substitution reactions between tetrafunctional fluorinated monomers derived from 2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzonitrile (PFBN) and various bisphenols such as hydroquinone (HQ), bisphenol-A (BP-A), and 4,4 '-(hexafluoroisopropylidene) diphenol (6F-BPA) by a two-step process under mild conditions. The tetrafunctional semi-fluorinated derivatives were obtained by reacting PFBN with nucleophiles such as -S2-, HQ, BP-A, 6F-BPA in 2:1 mol ratio at room temperature. The tetrafunctional derivatives were subsequently reacted with bisphenols of the same or different type in 1:2 mol ratios respectively to yield soluble porous polymers. The MALDI-TOF MS analysis shows that each repeating unit of polymer chain consists of one unit derived from the tetra-functional moiety and two bisphenoxy moieties exhibiting ladder structure in the polymer backbone. These polymers exhibit porous nature and the porosity can be fine-tuned by changing the bisphenols at either step. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.