High internal phase emulsion hierarchical porous polymer grafting polyol compounds for boron removal

Removing micro-pollutants is an important global challenge for the development of good adsorbents and environmental engineering issues. In this work, the structure of hierarchically and interconnected porous polymer has been fabricated by a high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) with water-in-oil and used for removing boron from water. This porous polymer was synthesized via monomer radical polymerization and utilized the active sites of monomer -Cl. In this way the vicinal hydroxyl group of N-Methyl-D-glucamine (NMG) was successfully introduced and grafted into HIPE by nucleophilic substitution reaction under the catalysis of triethylamine. The maximum boron uptake capacity was 2.54 mmol/g at a boron concentration of 100 mg/L, and reached adsorption equilibrium after about 2 h. Compared to traditional adsorption membrane materials, the HIPE porous polymer had better mechanical strength and able to resist acid and alkaline in the long-term. Meanwhile the regeneration efficiency of the HIPE30 %-g-PNMG porous polymer remained at 100 % after being used for 10 cycles.

Automated summary

In this study, a hierarchically and interconnected porous polymer was fabricated using high internal phase emulsion (HIPE) for removing boron from water. The porous polymer showed high boron uptake capacity and fast adsorption equilibrium, as well as good mechanical strength and regeneration efficiency.