Supermacroporous polydivinylbenzene cryogels with high surface area: Synthesis by solvothermal postcrosslinking and their adsorption behaviors for carbon dioxide and aniline

Cryogels are supermacroporous but restricted by lack of surface area in utilization to date. We here propose a method for fabrication of supermacroporous polydivinylbenzene (PDVB) cryogels with high surface area by redox-initiated cryopolymerization combined with solvothermal postcrosslinking technique. The PDVB precursor cryogels are prepared by redox-initiated cryopolymerization, followed by postcrosslinking of residual double bonds to form hypercrosslinked cryogels under solvothermal conditions. The hypercrosslinked cryogels maintain the original supermacroporosity and display very high surface area up to 1462 m 2 g −1 . We demonstrate the utilization of the resultant cryogel in uptake of carbon dioxide (7.9 wt % at 1 bar and 62.2 wt % at 25 bar, respectively) and uptake of aniline (333.3 mg g −1 at room temperature) from aqueous solutions. The adsorption behaviors of aniline on the hypercrosslinked cryogels are found to follow Langmuir model as well as Freundlich model in equilibrium adsorption and to follow pseudo-second-order model in kinetic adsorption, respectively. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136 , 47716.