Thiophene-based porous organic networks for volatile iodine capture and effectively detection of mercury ion

A series of conjugated microporous polymers containing thiophene-moieties (SCMP-COOH@1-3) was obtained by a homo-coupling polymerization reaction. Then the SCMP-COOH@1-3 were directly pyrolyzed without any templates to synthesize the porous carbon networks, named as SCMP-600@1, 2 and 3. SCMP-600@1-3 possess moderate BET surface area of 362–642 m(2) g(−1), have a permanent porous structure and plenty of sulfur and oxygen units in the skeletons as effective sorption sites, and display a high absorption performance for iodine vapour with an uptake up to 204 wt.%. In addition, SCMP-COOH@1-3 polymers can be used to effectively detect mercury ion from ethanol-water solution. Interestingly, under the same concentration of Hg(2+) conditions, the detection ability of mercury ion of porous materials increased with the increase of the pore volumes and the specific surface.