Highly Branched Pillar[5]arene-Derived Porous Aromatic Frameworks (PAFs) for Removal of Organic Pollutants from Water

The adsorption process is widely used for the treatment of wastewater containing organic pollutants. We fabricated highly branched pillar[5]arene-based porous aromatic frameworks (PAFs), PAF-P5, for the adsorption and removal of organic pollutants (short-chain alkyl derivatives 1–3 and pesticide molecules 4–6) from water with high removal efficiency (RE). However, PAF-P5 was incapable of adsorbing aromatic organic dyes 7–9. Adsorption kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption is mainly driven by strong host–guest interactions between 1–3 and the pillar[5]arene units in PAF-P5, while 4–6 only weakly interacted with the pillar[5]arene units in PAF-P5. Moreover, chemically breaking down the pillar[5]arene rings in PAF-P5 caused changes in the pore size, the microenvironment inside of the pores, and the frame morphology, and the resultant frameworks, PAF-DeP5, exhibited poor adsorption toward 1–6 but adsorbed 7–9 possibly through physical adsorption as implied by fitting the experimental data into the adsorption kinetic models.