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A superacid-promoted “knitting” strategy has been developed for the generation of a novel family of hypercrosslinked nanoporous polycarbazoles for efficient CO2 capture. Using trifluoromethanesulfonic acid, a Bronsted superacid, we demonstrate the facile and rapid synthesis of highly porous polycarbazoles with BET surface areas as high as 1688 m2 g−1, and capable of adsorbing 3.5 mmol g−1 of CO2 at 298 K and 1 bar. This impressive result bestows the material with the highest CO2 uptake capacity for all nanoporous carbazolic polymers and ranks among the best by known porous organic polymers under this condition. This innovative approach affords a metal-free alternative to Friedel–Crafts alkylation, and may open up new possibilities for the rational design and synthesis of new hypercrosslinked nanoporous organic networks for carbon capture.

Bis-triazine phenanthrolines have shown great promise for f-block metal separations, attributable to their highly preorganized structure, nitrogen donors, and more enhanced covalent bonding with actinides over lanthanides. However, their limited solubility in traditional solvents remains a technological bottleneck. Herein we report our recent work using a simple 2,9-bis(triazine)-1,10-phenanthroline (Me-BTPhen) dissolved in an ionic liquid (IL), demonstrating the efficacy of IL extraction systems for the selective separation of americium from europium, achieving separation factors in excess of 7500 and selectively removing up to 99% of the americium. Characterization of the coordination environment was performed using a combination of X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (XAFS) and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.