High Surface Area Nanoporous Crystalline Films: Highly Absorbent, Transparent and Flexible

Based on a commercially available thermoplastic polymer (poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene) oxide, PPO), nanoporous-crystalline (NC) polymer films with a surface area (SA) higher than 450 m2 g-1 and with exceptionally fast organic pollutant uptakes are prepared.Surprisingly, kinetics of guest uptakes from high-SA NC PPO films are even faster than for NC PPO aerogels and then much faster when referred to volume of the sorbent material. Because of their extremely fast kinetics of pollutant uptakes, associated with high thermal and mechanical stability, these new high-SA NC PPO films are expected to find many applications, mainly in pollutant remediation.In this framework, we also found crystallization conditions leading to unprecedented high-SA PPO films with transparency and toughness comparable with those for amorphous PPO films. This high-SA, transparent, and tough NC PPO films are expected to be suitable for many applications as organic pollution remediation, molecular separations, and molecular sensors.