Porous Polymers Based on 9,10-Bis(methacryloyloxymethyl)anthracene-Towards Synthesis and Characterization

Abstract

Porous materials can be found in numerous essential applications. They are of particular interest when, in addition to their porosity, they have other advantageous properties such as thermal stability or chemical diversity. The main aim of this study was to synthesize the porous copolymers of 9,10-bis(methacryloyloxymethyl)anthracene (BMA) with three different co-monomers divinylbenzene (DVB), ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) and trimethylpropane trimethacrylate (TRIM). They were synthesized via suspension polymerization using chlorobenzene and toluene served as porogenic solvents. For the characterization of the synthesized copolymers ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, a low-temperature nitrogen adsorption-desorption method, thermogravimetry, scanning electron microscopy, inverse gas chromatography and size distribution analysis were successfully employed. It was found that depending on the used co-monomer and the type of porogen regular polymeric microspheres with a specific surface area in the range of 134-472 m²/g can be effectively synthesized. The presence of miscellaneous functional groups promotes divergent types of interactions Moreover, all of the copolymers show a good thermal stability up to 307 °C. What is important, thanks to application of anthracene derivatives as the functional monomer, the synthesized materials show fluorescence under UV radiation. The obtained microspheres can be used in various adsorption techniques as well as precursor for thermally resistant fluorescent sensors.

Keywords: polymeric microspheres; porous structure; thermal resistance.

Figure 1

SEM image of BMA-co-TRIM_C microspheres synthesized in the presence of 0.5 wt.% (a) and 2.5 wt.% (b) of PVA.

Figure 2

The chemical formulas of the used monomers.

Figure 3

ATR-FTIR spectra of BMA-co-DVB (blue line), BMA co-EGDMA (pink line) and BMA-co-TRIM (red line) copolymers.

Figure 4

Pore size distribution for selected copolymers.

Figure 5

SEM images of the BMA-co-DVB_1_T (left) and BMA-co-TRIM_1_T (right) copolymers.

Figure 6

TG (left) and DTG (right) curves of the investigated copolymers obtained in helium.

Figure 7

TG (left) and DTG (right) curves of the investigated copolymers obtained in synthetic air.

Figure 8

The images of the BMA-co-TRIM_4_T copolymer (a) before and (b) under UV radiation.