A new porous organic polymer (CTF-CAR), which takes carbazole as the electron-rich center unit and thiophenes as the auxiliary group, has been synthesized through catalyst-free Schiff-base polymerization. At the same time, the structure, thermal stability, morphology, and other basic properties of the polymer were analyzed by IR, NMR, TGA, and SEM. Then, CTF-CAR was applied to iodine capture and rhodamine B adsorption. Due to its strong electron donor ability and abundant heteroatom binding sites, which have a positive effect on the interaction between the polymer network and adsorbates, CTF-CAR exhibits high uptake capacities for iodine vapor and rhodamine B as 2.86 g g-1 and 199.7 mg g-1, respectively. The recyclability test also confirmed that it has good reusability. We found that this low-cost and catalyst-free synthetic porous organic polymer has great potential for the treatment of polluted water and iodine capture.
Keywords: carbazole-based; catalyst-free; iodine capture; porous organic polymer; rhodamine B adsorption.