Hypercrosslinking Polymers Fabricated from Divinyl Benzene via Friedel-Crafts Addition Polymerization

Microporous organic polymers with high surface area are widely used in many applications. Among them, hypercrosslinked polymers have been extensively concerned because of their simple processes and low-cost reagents. However, due to most state-of-the-art strategies for HCPs based on condensation reactions, the release of small molecules such as hydrochloric acid and methanol involved in such strategies brings about new hazards to environment. Herein, we propose a method for fabrication of hypercrosslinked polymers via self-addition polymerization of divinyl benzene and its crosslinking with polar aromatic molecules. The hypercrosslinked polyDVB-based products are demonstrated by Friedel-Crafts addition reaction of double bonds on DVB that can connect adjacent phenyl rings of aromatic molecules to form the crosslinked networks. The HCPDVB-CB obtained in 1-chlorobutane as solvent has a high micropore content and displays high surface area up to 931 m2/g. Following this finding, DVB is used as a novel external crosslinker for knitting polar aromatic molecules. When L-phenylalanine and bisphenol A are used as the aromatic units, the obtained HCP(Phe-DVB) and HCP(BPA-DVB) could reach surface area of 612 m2/g and 471 m2/g, and have hydrogen uptake of 0.62 wt% and 0.58 wt% at 77 K and 1.13 bar by comparison with HCPDVB-CB having hydrogen uptake of 0.30 wt%, respectively.