Advanced porous materials for environmentally relevant toxic pollutants detection and sequestration

Abstract

Environmental pollution and its consequences have become a major threat in recent couple of years. Water pollution among them become major menace and the problem will be even worse in the near future. In the 21st century, water recycling has become a pivotal issue as most of the regions in the globe beholding a water crisis. Recognition and sequestration of toxic pollutants for achieving purified and drinkable water have been considered as energy efficient, economic and environmentally benign methods. In this regards, advanced porous materials become a great contender for detection and sequestration of toxic pollutants for treatment of wastewater. An amalgamation of robust nature, structural tunability and porosity with large surface area and desired chemical functionalities make these materials protrude as a promising candidature for wastewater remediation. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and porous organic polymer (POPs) are among the versatile advanced porous materials extensively investigated towards the purification of water. Along this line, we explored the design and development of tailored porous materials and their composites toward task-specific applications. Initially, a post-engineered MOF was rationally synthesized and used for the selective detection of biologically important yet toxic species, i.e., nitric oxide (NO) from both vapor and water medium. Further, to overcome the shortcomings of MOF in the field of sensing, we have introduced porous organic polymer (POP) to detect the highly significant organic micro pollutants, such as antibiotics and pesticides in aqueous medium. Moreover, sequestration is utmost important in order to complete decontamination of wastewater, as the identification of hazardous contaminants is not the only way to get purified water. Keeping this in mind, we have demonstrated efficient sequestration of toxic and radioactive pollutants from water by developing novel porous materials.