Approximately 20% of the world’s population lacks access to sanitary drinking water, the majority of which is contaminated with metals such as copper and lead. While current technologies can effectively remove metals, methods such as membrane filtration suffer from biodegradation and oxidation. Polyarylene ether sulfones, however, are not subject to biodegradation or oxidation and can be easily tailored to suit the needs of a given application. We have developed a series of sulfonamide-based metal chelators that can be easily modified to improve metal selectability and withstand the harsh conditions associated with water treatment. We have generated multifunctional monomers capable of sequestering metals from aqueous solution. Additionally, polymacrocycles were prepared by exploiting the differences in activation energy required for the aromatic substitution of difluorinated benzenesulfonamide derivatives. The polymerizations were monitored using <sup>1</sup>H NMR spectroscopy, and characterized using GPC, DSC, TGA. The binding affinities of the polymers and monomers to metals were evaluated using ITC.

Multifunctional sulfonamide-based polymers for water purification

2019 Spring National Meeting

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