Fossil fuels constitute the primary source of energy today. While they are energy dense and reliable, they have taken a massive toll on the environment. Both the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels emit harmful greenhouse gases, most prominently, carbon dioxide, which is believed to be the main cause of climate change and global warming. Nuclear energy is considered as one of the most prominent alternative to fossil fuels given its high-energy density and low carbon footprint. However, exhaust fumes coming off nuclear power plants contain high percentage of radioactive materials such as 129I and 131I isotopes that have half-lives of about 8 days and 15.7 million years, respectively, and thus impose major environmental and health concerns. As a result, there is a great need to develop novel materials that are capable to capture and store iodine vapor before its release into the atmosphere. Porous organic polymers (POPs), made of covalently bonded-light atoms such as C, N, O, and S, are considered one of the most promising iodine sorbents given their high surface areas, remarkable thermal and chemical stabilities, and tunable functionality. In this work, we report on the preparation of a series of triazine based aminal linked porous organic polymers and their application in iodine capture and sensing. The novel porous organic polymers display high iodine uptake (up to 365 wt.%) and able to release more than 98% of the loaded iodine when immersed in polar organic solvent at room temperature. In addition, some of these polymers exhibit excellent detection sensitivity towards iodine via fluorescence quenching. The exceptional performance of these polymers in iodine removal ranks among the best of POPs and makes them very promising materials in solving a major environmental concern.

Aminal linked porous organic polymers for reversible iodine capture and sensing

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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