Hydrophobic Fluorinated Porous Organic Frameworks for Enhanced Adsorption of Nerve Agents

Humidity in the air can significantly limit the adsorption capacity of porous materials used for the removal of chemical warfare agents (CWAs). Therefore, in this work, we prepared a porous organic material (C-1) and its fluoride derivative (C-1-F) via a Schiff base reaction and determined their structure and morphological properties, hydrophobicity, and adsorption capacity. Compared to the parent C-1 material, both the channel and particle surface of C-1-F were highly hydrophobic, thus stabilizing the fluorinated porous material under various humidity conditions. Dimethyl methyl phosphonate was used as a nerve agent simulant to examine the efficiency of the synthesized porous materials, indicating that C-1-F had a higher adsorption capacity than C-1 under dry conditions. Moreover, unlike C-1, the adsorption capacity of hydrophobic C-1-F was not affected even under a relative humidity of 20%, and it is still able to maintain high adsorption capacity at a relative humidity of 60%, suggesting its high application potential in the removal of CWAs.