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SiO2 nanospheres as surfactant and template in aqueous dispersion polymerizations yielding highly nanoporous resin
Konstantin B L Borchert1, Niklas Gerlach1, Christine Steinbach1
1Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V., Hohe Str. 6, 01069 Dresden, Germany.
Hypothesis:
High nitrogen containing resins such as poly(melamine-co-formaldehyde) (PMF) are known for their very good adsorption properties. Until now, using an ecofriendly hard-templating approach with SiO2 nanospheres in water for synthesis, only yielded either highly porous particles with diameters up to 1 µm or non-porous particles with diameters above 1 µm. Small particles cannot be used as fixed bed adsorbents in columns because of the very high pressure occurring.
Experiments:
To yield particles with high porosity and larger diameters for the use as fixed bed adsorbent, we investigated the influence of several synthesis parameters on porosity and particle morphology.
Findings:
From all variations, we proposed a mechanism for the complex interplay between the PMF prepolymer and resin species with SiO2 nanoparticles acting both as Pickering-like surfactant and template particle. With this knowledge we were able to produce a suitable column material with high specific surface area up to 260 m2/g. We then proved the application of this material for aqueous dichromate adsorption in batch, yielding a maximum capacity of 138 mg/g with recyclability. In column experiments, the contamination of 5 mg/L dichromate in water was reduced to drinking water safe levels for an influent volume equal to over 160 bed volumes.
