Sorption Properties of Polydivinylbenzene Polymers Towards Phenolic Compounds and Pharmaceuticals

Abstract

Highly cross-linked polymers are commonly used in purification and separation techniques because of their many useful features. In order to better adjust their porosity to adsorption of specific compounds, methods like surface functionalization or imprinting are used. In this work, a series of highly cross-linked polydivinylbenzenes (pDVB) were prepared using a suspension method. Toluene was applied as a pore-forming diluent. Some part of toluene (1 mL) was replaced with phenol (F), 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (T) or their mixture (M) to prepare polymers with porosity more suitable for phenols sorption. Another approach was an introduction of sulfone groups onto the polymer surface (pDVB-SO3H). The physicochemical characteristics of the synthetized adsorbents included CHN, FTIR, DSC and porosimetric analyses. Afterwards, to evaluate sorption properties of the prepared adsorbents towards phenols, ibuprofen and salicylic acid the solid phase extraction (SPE) experiments were performed. The polymers had the specific surface areas of about 440–560 m2/g created mainly by mesopores with widths ca. 3.75 and 4.75–7.15 nm. Materials obtained with the addition of porosity modifiers (phenol, trichlorophenol, mixture) had more uniform porous structure and their sorption capacity toward phenols increased ca. 5%. Similar sorption capacities were obtained for ibuprofen. Salicylic acid had low affinity to the surface of the tested polymers.