It is known in the art that porous polymeric materials can be produced by the free-radical polymerization of divinylbenzene alone or in combination with styrenic monomers in the presence of solvent serving as a porogen.  Pore size distribution is readily manipulated through the amount of crosslinker used and choice and amount of solvent.  However, these modifications typically only modify the pore size distribution in the meso- and macropore range.  Using this method, it is difficult to generate materials where the porosity is dominated by micropores.  The basis of this work is to show that primarily microporous polymeric materials can be generated using this same synthetic approach by simply incorporating a novel, free-radically polymerizable contorted monomer based on the well-known and synthetically easy to access spirobisindane structure.  As seen with the development of polymers of intrinsic microporosity, the incorporation of rigid, non-planar structures frustrates packing within the polymeric material resulting in the formation of a large population of micropores.  It will be further shown that these microporous polymeric materials can be post-functionalized to have a high functional group density of either acidic and basic groups.<br/>

Highly microporous free-radically generated polymeric materials using a novel contorted monomer

256th National Meeting (2018)

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