The development of nanoporous materials is particularly relevant for various applications such as molecular separation or gas storage. Conventional nanoporous materials are usually constituted by amorphous or crystalline inorganic networks such as silica or zeolites but in recent years the design of nanoporous polymer materials have raised a great interest.<br/>This research activity is due to the possibility to merge the properties of porous materials with the typical characteristics of polymers as robustness, low cost, and durability associated with easy processing to suitable products (i.e. films, fibers, foams, aerogels,...). A large variety of porous polymers such as hypercrosslinked polymers (HCPs), conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs), or polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs) have attracted a growing interest for applications in gas storage, catalysis, and separations.<br/>In addition to these nanoporous polymer materials, the formation of nanoporous-crystalline forms have been also discovered for two industrially relevant polymers: syndiotactic polystyrene (s-PS) and poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene)oxide (PPO). In particular three nanoporous crystalline forms have been described for s-PS (see attached Figure) while two nanoporous crystalline forms have been observed for PPO.<br/>These nanoporous crystalline phases which are obtained from co-crystalline host-guest phases by suitable guest extraction procedures (e.g., by carbon dioxide in supercritical conditions or substitution with a volatile guest) are able to absorb volatile organic compounds (VOC) also when present in traces and have been proposed for environmantal applications.<br/>In this contribution different aspects relative to the prperaration, structure and sorption properties of s-PS and PPO materials (films, fibers, aerogels, ...) with nanoporous crystalline phases will be presented in order to illustrate the possible use of these innovative materials in water treatment applications.

Removal of volatile organic pollutants from water by nanoporous crystalline polymer materials

2019 Fall National Meeting

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