Hierarchically porous polymers with ultra-high affinity for bisphenol A enables high efficient water purification

The widespread use of bisphenol A (BPA) poses a serious threat to the environment and human health. However, efficient removal of BPA in water is incredibly challenging, owing to the inert chemical nature and electrical neutrality of BPA. In order to solve this problem, for the first time, we propose that the strategy of designing conjugated porous polymers with the pore size matching the size of BPA can greatly enhance the binding force of BPA. On this basis, we developed a novel conjugated poly 1,3,5-tri[4-(diphenylamino)phenyl]benzene (MPDPB) with intrinsic pore matching the size of BPA and multi-stage porous structure by editing polymerization with nitrobenzene. The binding energy of MPDPB to BPA is the highest at present (37.84 kcal/mol), which is 2.3 times that of the most powerful adsorbent previously reported and five times that of the conventional adsorbent. These advantages make MPDPB have super-high adsorption performance towards BPA and high absorbing stability under extreme environments. Impressively, MPDPB could be easily loaded on a non-woven fabric to generate point-of-use devices, which could eliminate more than 99.8% of BPA, making it the best BPA candidate adsorbent material. We believe that the proposed material design derived from the specific structure of the contaminant molecule can be extended to exploring further innovative adsorbents.