High-efficiency capture of bisphenol pollutants of different sizes by rigid aromatic β-cyclodextrin polymers with hierarchical porous networks

Under the challenge of efficiently removing bisphenols (BPs) from contaminated water, we herein present the synthesis and evaluation of two rigid aromatic β-cyclodextrin polymers with hierarchical porous networks (RACP-HPNs) via an integrated polymerization–crosslinking strategy. The materials were characterized by multiple techniques to verify their structures. Adsorption experiments revealed that RACP-HPN exhibited an excellent overall adsorption performance and rapid kinetics. Its adsorption capacity for BPA reaches 542.2 mg g −1 , which equilibrates within only 3 min, and it retains over 96 % of the adsorption performance after six regeneration cycles. Effective removal was achieved under various solution conditions, and the performance was closely dependent on the molecular configuration and size of the bisphenol substrates. Theoretical calculations confirmed that the efficient adsorption originated primarily from van der Waals forces, hydrogen bonding and π–π interactions, while its hierarchical pore architecture promotes mass transfer and accessibility to active sites. These findings indicate that RACP-HPN is a promising and rigid adsorbent for efficient removal of bisphenol compounds.