Functional-Oriented Strategy Construction of Hydrogen-Bonded Organic Porous Polymers for Efficient Capture of Radioactive Iodine in the Environment

The radioactive iodine in water and air is hard to remove and seriously threatens human health, so developing adsorption materials that can effectively remove radioactive iodine is essential. As an emerging porous material, porous organic polymers (POPs) have remarkable advantages in absorbing polluted molecules due to their designable porous structure. Based on the above, taking advantage of the fact that urea (U) and thiourea (TU) can form stable chemical bonds and are rich in electrons, we have successfully synthesized two hydrogen-bonded POP materials (U-POP-1 and TU-POP-1) for iodine-trapping in water and air. U-POP-1 and TU-POP-1 exhibit ultrahigh I2 adsorption capacity in water and air. Interestingly, the adsorption capacity of our POPs after being soaked in DMF was significantly higher than that of the original. Moreover, the absorption process and mechanism were explored using UV–vis, XPS, DFT calculation, etc.