Swellable functional hypercrosslinked polymer networks for the uptake of chemical warfare agents

Abstract

The need for porous materials to function as sorbents in order to allow for bulk uptake (and potential deactivation) of chemical warfare agent (CWA) stockpiles is of significant importance in the world today. Hypercrosslinked polymers (HCPs) represent a class of such sorbents being produced using the facile and tuneable so-called “knitting” procedure. Several HCPs are reported and their properties including apparent Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface areas (SA_BET) and swellability (Q) against CWA simulants are examined using two reliable swelling methods which we have developed. The HCP derived from fluorobenzene showed the greatest potential for using such materials for CWA uptake and was tested against real agents including isopropyl methylphosphonofluoridate (sarin, GB) and bis(2-chloroethyl)sulfane (sulfur mustard, HD) revealing uptakes close to 20 mL g⁻¹.