Phenanthroline-based microporous organic materials for removal of Cu(II) from aqueous solution and reutilization of spent adsorbent as catalysts.

Microporous organic polymers (MOPs) possessing large specific surface area with high stability are suitable adsorbent to remove contaminants from water, such as organic pollutant and heavy metal contaminants. Herein, a phenanthroline-based microporous organic polymer (Phen-MOP) has been synthesized through the coupling between benzene and 1,10-phenanthroline. The adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics were investigated. This Phen-MOP exhibited good adsorption efficiency for removal of Cu(II) from water with high structural stability and reusability. The maximum removal efficiency could reach to 98.47% at a Cu(II) concentration of 20 mg/L, pH = 7, 25 °C. It was found by investigating the adsorption isotherms that the maximum adsorption capacity Qm was 128.53 mg/g. Interestingly, after the adsorption of Cu(II), the resulting Phen-MOP-Cu can serve as an efficient heterogeneous catalyst for the Ullmann-type reaction. The structure and composition of the Phen-MOP-Cu were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results indicated that this catalyst possessed immense specific surface area, large pore volume and high stability. The catalyst was easily recyclable and did not significantly lose catalytic activity after being reused six times.