Efficient Mercury Capture Using Functionalized Porous Organic Polymer

Abstract

The primary challenge in materials design and synthesis is achieving the balance between performance and economy for real-world application. This issue is addressed by creating a thiol functionalized porous organic polymer (POP) using simple free radical polymerization techniques to prepare a cost-effective material with a high density of chelating sites designed for mercury capture and therefore environmental remediation. The resulting POP is able to remove aqueous and airborne mercury with uptake capacities of 1216 and 630 mg g , respectively. The material demonstrates rapid kinetics, capable of dropping the mercury concentration from 5 ppm to 1 ppb, lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency's drinking water limit (2 ppb), within 10 min. Furthermore, the material has the added benefits of recyclability, stability in a broad pH range, and selectivity for toxic metals. These results are attributed to the material's physical properties, which include hierarchical porosity, a high density of chelating sites, and the material's robustness, which improve the thiol availability to bind with mercury as determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray absorption fine structure studies. The work provides promising results for POPs as an economical material for multiple environmental remediation applications.

Opportunities of Covalent Organic Frameworks for Advanced Applications

“…[59] Wang and co-workers reported the first application of fluorescent COFs for selectively detecting and removing Hg ions, as demonstrated by a thioether-functionalized hydrazine linked COF, COF-LZU8, which was constructed by the condensation of 1 and 2 (Figure 14). Prompted by this critical need to mitigate heavy metal contamination and protect fresh water supplies, developing new materials for selective capture/detection of a target contaminant has long been a hot topic.…”

Fine-tuning of the confined space in microporous metal–organic frameworks for efficient mercury removal

“…S11). ] in contaminated aqueous solutions and the time required to achieve such decrease for 1 (red), and different materials reported such as MOFs [38][39][40][41][42][43][44] (green), COFs 33,58,59 (covalent-organic frameworks, blue), POPs 31,32,61 (porous organic polymers, orange), mesoporous silicas 62 (purple) and chalcogels 63 (cyan). Dashed line represent the frontier between contaminated and accepted limits for drinking water.…”

Soluble Hyperbranched Porous Organic Polymers

“…Over the past few decades, extensive investigations of POPs have been reported. These materials have shown promise in applications such as energy storage, catalysis, optoelectronics, drug delivery, and so forth . One of the key challenges with POPs is the limited solubility which hinders their processability and mechanical properties for device integration and real applications .…”