Cost-effective one-pot preparation of nanoporous phenolic resins for efficient CH4 purification from C1-C3 light hydrocarbons in natural gas

Cost-effective preparation of functional nanoporous organic polymers as well as utilization of organic contaminants as starting monomers were of great interest. In this works, adopting either organic contaminant bisphenol A(BPA) or 1,1,1-tris(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethane(THE) as a counterpart to polymerize with the aromatic aldehyde-based monomers resulted highly stable hyper-crossed-linked functional porous phenolic resins networks via a facile one-pot condensation reaction. The as-synthesized resins were evaluated by Fourier-transformed infrared spectra(FTIR), solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance(SSNMR), X-ray diffraction(XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis(TGA), scanning electron microscopy(SEM), transmission electron microscope(TEM), and 77 K nitrogen adsorption et al. The steric geometry difference of building monomers endowed the porous phenolic resins networks possessing the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller(BET) special surface areas from 510 to 821 m² g⁻¹ as well as pore volume from 0.35 to 0.48 cm³ g⁻¹. Furthermore, ideal adsorbed solution theory (IAST) investigation displayed that the three polymers owned good CH₄ purification performance, and the selectivities of C₃H₈/CH₄, C₂H₆/CH₄ and CO₂/CH₄ reached 241.3, 37.7, and 10.4 at 298 K/1bar, respectively. Accordingly, the hydroxyl-rich porous phenolic resins networks with prominent stabilities acquired in this effort manifested potential applications for the CH₄ purification from C₁-C₃ light hydrocarbons.