Microporous Organic Polymers Based on Hyper-Crosslinked Coal Tar: Preparation and Application for Gas Adsorption

Hyper-crosslinked polymers (HCPs) are promising materials for gas capture and storage, but high cost and complicated preparation limit their practical application. In this paper, a new type of HCPs (CTHPs) was synthesized through a one-step mild Friedel-Crafts reaction with low-cost coal tar as the starting material. Chloroform was utilized as both solvent and crosslinker to generate a three-dimensional crosslinked network with abundant micropores. The maximum BET surface area of the prepared CTHPs could reach up to 929 m²  g^-1 . Owing to the high affinity between the heteroatoms on the coal-tar building blocks and the CO₂ molecules, the adsorption capacity of CTHPs towards CO₂ reached up to 14.2 wt % (1.0 bar, 273 K) with a high selectivity (CO₂ /N₂ =32.3). Furthermore, the obtained CTHPs could adsorb 1.27 wt % H₂ at 1.0 bar and 77.3 K, and also showed capacity for the capture of high organic vapors at room temperature. In comparison with other reported porous organic polymers, CTHPs have the advantages of low-cost, easy preparation, and high gas-adsorption performance, making them suitable for mass production and practical use in the future.