Nanoporous highly crosslinked polymer networks with covalently bonded amines for CO2 capture

Amine-containing polymers are considered to be promising CO2 capture materials. Considerable research effort has been invested in designing and preparing new materials with high surface area and amine content. In this work, a series of nanoporous highly crosslinked polymers (HCPs) with covalently bonded amines were prepared by post-modification of highly crosslinked divinylbenzene-maleic anhydride (DVB-MAH) copolymer with various diamines. The successful incorporation of the diamines was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and elemental analysis. The resulting amine-containing HCPs possessed both micropores and mesopores, and they exhibited BET surface area of 183–500 m2/g. The CO2 capture capacity of these polymers varied in relation to their surface areas and amine contents. The chemistry described in this report provides a facile synthetic route to obtain new amine-containing polymer particles as potential solid sorbents for acidic gases such as carbon dioxide.