Removal of Organic Micropollutants from Water by Macrocycle-Containing Covalent Polymer Networks

Access to clean drinking water is a recognized societal need that touches on the health and livelihood of millions of people worldwide. This is providing an incentive to develop new water-treatment technologies. Traditional technologies, while widespread, are usually inefficient at removing organic pollutants from sewage or so-called grey water. Macrocycle-containing covalent polymer networks have begun to attract attention in the context of water treatment owing to the inherent stability provided by the polymer backbones and their ability to capture micropollutant guests as the result of tunable macrocycle-based host-guest interactions. In this Minireview, we summarize recent advances (from 2016 to mid-2020) involving the removal of organic micropollutants from water using macrocycle-containing covalent polymer networks. An overview of future challenges within this subfield is also provided.