Stable benzimidazole-incorporated porous polymer network for carbon capture with high efficiency and low cost

Porous Polymer Networks (PPNs) are an emerging category of advanced porous materials that are of interest for carbon dioxide capture due to their great stabilities and convenient functionalization processes. In this work, an intrinsically-functionalized porous network, PPN-101, was prepared from commercially accessible materials via an easy two-step synthesis. It has a BET surface area of 1095 m2/g. Due to the presence of the benzimidazole units in the framework, its CO2 uptake at 273 K reaches 115 cm3/g and its calculated CO2/N2 selectivity is 199, which indicates its potential for CO2/N2 separation. The great stability, large CO2/N2 selectivity and low production cost make PPN-101 a promising material for industrial separation of CO2 from flue gas. Its H2 and CH4 uptake properties were also investigated.