Preparation of disulfide bond-rich porous hypercrosslinked polymers for the efficient adsorption of trace methylmercury at ppb levels in aqueous solutions

Methylmercury (CH 3 Hg + ) is present at low levels in natural waters and is difficult to remove. Here, an organic hypercrosslinked porous polymer material (HCP-DS) enriched with disulfide bonds was designed and synthesized from dibenzyl disulfide via a Friedel-Crafts alkylation reaction. The resulting material demonstrated a high efficiency to remove methylmercury from water at ppb levels. The adsorption capacity reached 1174.765 μg·g −1 at an initial methylmercury concentration of 500 μg·L −1 . Notably, the material maintained excellent adsorption capacity across a wide pH range, in the range of pH = 5–12, the removal rate (R) of methylmercury can get over 95.56 %, even at pH = 2 or 13 it could get the removal rate over 85.08 %. HCP-DS proves great environmental adaptability, even in the presence of other metal cations or high ionic strength in aqueous environments, HCP-DS exhibited robust adsorption of trace methylmercury. Furthermore, the material demonstrated excellent reusability, maintaining high performance over five adsorption–desorption cycles. Importantly, HCP-DS effectively adsorbed methylmercury in the presence of organic matter (R > 89.24 %), it also performs an excellent capacity to remove methylmercury in a variety of natural water environments such as seawater, surface water, and groundwater underscoring its potential for practical applications in water purification.