<br/>Contamination of water with organic micropollutants, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, has been shown to cause a wide array of health problems in animals, as well as a range of environmental issues. Adsorption is the most frequently used water decontamination method but the common drawbacks of adsorbents used (e.g. activated carbon) include the high cost of production, limited regeneration ability and slow micropollutant uptake. A calix[4]arene scaffold is known to encapsulate a range of chemically diverse guest molecules, due to its hydrophobic cavity and both polar and non-polar rims, which can be functionalized to aid in guest recognition.<br/>However, calix[4]arene monomers have not been used in the assembly of porous materials for water treatment before. In this study, we crosslink calix[4]arene with alkyne rich moieties to produce a porous covalent calix[4]arene-based polymer (CalP), which possesses a high surface area and large pore size. We evaluated the ability of CalP to remove organic micropollutants of different size, charge and hydrophobicity, that encompass common pesticides, pharmaceuticals and constituents of plastic. Our results show that the polymer can uptake a variety of micropollutants in under 15 minutes and its uptake efficiency is comparable to that of commercially available activated carbon. Owing to its aromatic rings and alkyne-based linkers,<br/>CalP is highly hydrophobic, which facilitates its facile recovery from a water solution with no loss of absorption efficiency. Given our successes in synthesizing, characterizing and using the first calix[4]arene-based porous polymer for micropollutant removal from an aqueous solution, we believe that these polymers can be used for water treatment and other environmental applications in the future.

Calix[4]arene-based covalent porous polymers for water purification

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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