Postfunctionalization of Porous Organic Polymers Based on Friedel–Crafts Acylation for CO₂ and Hg²⁺ Capture

Abstract

Melamine-based porous organic polymers (POPs) are promising for gas uptake and water treatment because of their unique and tunable porosity, high nitrogen (N) content, and high Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area (SBET). However, it is difficult to construct ketone-based POPs by the Friedel–Crafts acylation reaction. Herein, the ketone-based POPs were postfunctionalized with melamine (MA) by the Schiff-based reaction and the rigid triazine rings of MA were embedded in the polymer chains as rigid cross-linkers, resulting in the polymers with high SBET (555 m2·g–1) and total pore volume (0.72 cm3·g–1). Moreover, plentiful imine, amino, and triazine functionalities were inserted in the polymers, providing the polymers with high N content of 41.83 wt %. The resulting polymers were promising for CO2 capture (145 mg·g–1; 273 K, 1.0 bar) and Hg2+ removal (372 mg·g–1). This study offers a universal strategy to construct melamine-based POPs from various ketone-functionalized HCPs via a simple postfunctionalization.