Sizable iodine uptake of porous copolymer networks bearing Tröger's base units
Suchetha Shetty, Noorullah Baig, Moustafa Sherief Moustafa, Saleh Mohammed Al‐Mousawi, Bassam Alameddine
Abstract
Copolymer networks containing Tröger's base units TBP1-3 were synthesized in very good yields from a Sonogashira cross-coupling reaction of a specially designed diethynyl Tröger's base synthon TB with various tetrabrominated aryl derivatives. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of TBP1-3 discloses high 10% weight loss temperature values reaching up to 443 °C. Nitrogen adsorption measurements of the target copolymers TBP1-3 reveal a strong correlation between porosity and the geometry of the aryl spacer whose inflexible rigid structure (biphenyl, TBP1), contorted configuration (spirobifluorene, TBP2), or fused aromatic structure (pyrene, TBP3) affords Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface areas ranging from ~586 m2 g−1 to ~620 m2 g−1. Inspection of the iodine adsorption properties of TBP1-3 reveals their significant uptake of iodine vapors reaching a maximum of 440 wt% for TBP1 whereas TBP2 exhibits a very good removal efficiency of iodine solution in hexane attaining 77% (qe = 192 mg g−1). Furthermore, reusability tests disclose the possibility to regenerate the polymers even after several iodine adsorptions-desorption cycles.