New acetal-linked porous organic polymer as an efficient absorbent for CO2 and iodine uptake

Abstract

An acetal-linked porous organic polymer (APOP) was synthesized by the p-toluenesulfonic acid-catalyzed acetalization reaction of 1,4-phthalaldehyde with 1,3,5-tris(3-tert-butyl-4-hydroxy-5-hydroxymethyl)phenyl benzene. The obtained polymer possessed amorphous structure and also exhibited excellent thermal stability, as revealed by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The APOP were further characterized by solid-state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The APOP exhibited a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 490 m2 g−1 with pore size distribution in the range of mesopores and the pore volume of 0.435 cm3 g−1. The resulting polymer displayed the CO2 uptake capacity of 85.7 mg g−1 at 273 K and 53.7 mg g−1 at 298 K (1 bar). Furthermore, the iodine adsorption performance of the APOP was also investigated, and it was found that the iodine uptake capacity could reach up to 220 wt%. These results were demonstrated that the APOP should be promising candidate for CO2 and iodine uptake.