Efficient Wastewater Purification Enabled by a Functionalized poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene)oxide (PPO) Based Membrane

Emerging contaminants in wastewater have become a major con-cern, posing significant threats to aquatic ecosystems and human health. Different strategies have been proposed over the years (i.e. chemical treatments, biological treatments, etc.) but adsorption is becoming interesting because it is cost-effective, easy to perform and to scale up and adsorbent can be regenerated and reused many times. In this perspective, it is crucial to find new adsorbent materials for the removal of emerging contaminants, which are recalcitrant products. Numerous adsorption systems have been investigated but polymers able to generate nanoporous crystalline (NC) phases have recently emerged as especially attractive candidates. In this context, the commercially available poly(2,6‑dimethyl‑1,4‑phenylene)oxide (PPO) has proven particu-larly compelling, demonstrating exceptionally rapid adsorption kinetics even when pollutants are present at low concentrations in water. In this communication, PPO films with NC phases used to re-move organic contaminants, such as PCE and nicotine, from wa-ter will be presented. Further, a sulfonation procedure of the pol-ymer was performed: remarkable and unique results were achieved since kinetic uptakes and removal efficiency were higher due to the sulfonic groups present in the PPO amorphous phase; indeed by enhancing hydrophilicity, and by exposing anionic groups, it can both improve the diffusion of the pollutant mole-cules in the NC phase, that act as adsorption sites and it also pro-motes the removal of cationic contaminants by electrostatic inter-actions. Adsorption kinetic and thermodynamic were studied throughout mathematical model, and different effects (such as initial concen-tration of contaminant, variation of temperature, pH and adsor-bent dosage, etc.) were studied to better understand the mecha-nism of adsorption involved in this process.