Simple synthesis of porous melamine-formaldehyde resins by low temperature solvothermal method and its CO2 adsorption properties

Abstract

A simple and environmentally-friendly approach for the preparation of porous melamine-formaldehyde resins (PMFRs) was developed by using low-boiling-point solvents, such as water, as pore-forming agent. With using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and low-boiling solvents cosolvent method, PMFRs with a high specific surface area and well-defined pore structure can be synthesized at a low reaction temperature of 140 °C for a short reaction duration in 20 hours, which can replace the conventional methods that use dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as reaction medium and require 3 days at 170 °C to achieve similar surface area. When loaded with polyethylenimine (PEI), the PMFR-PEI-30% showed good CO2 adsorption performance with a capacity of up to 2.89 mmol/g at 30 °C. These results bring new perspectives for the development of lowcost and environmentally-friendly synthetic methods for porous materials, which can boost their widespread applications.

Keywords

• Polymer synthesis, molecular e
• low-boiling-point solvents
• low temperature
• Porous melamine-formaldehyde r
• CO2 adsorption