Pyrrolidinone-based hypercrosslinked polymers for reversible capture of radioactive iodine

The potential consequences of radioactive iodine motivate the development of highly effective adsorbents with facile synthesis strategies. Pyrrolidinone was herein employed as the monomer to prepare hypercrosslinked polymers (HCPs) via a simple Friedel-Crafts reaction catalyzed by FeCl3. Owing to the affinity sites of pyrrolidinone toward iodine, high surface area, and electron-rich aromatic networks of HCPs, the developed pyrrolidinone-based HCPs exhibited an iodine uptake capacity up to 460 wt%. Our work highlighted new opportunities in using HCPs as a platform for iodine capture from nuclear waste for environment remediation by taking advantages of their facile synthesis and low cost.