Abstract

Porous organic polymers (POPs) have shown great potentials as advanced materials to help the sustainable development of the society, although some challenges remained such as structure characterization and rational design of the novel structure of POPs for specific applications. This seminar will demonstrate how flexible structural units were incorporated into the polymer backbone to bring some interesting properties in POPs, using ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) on norbornene-derived monomers. The synthetic efforts, careful characterization with advanced solid-state NMR¹, the synergistic effect of flexibility, porosity and functionality will be discussed for their applications in precious metal adsorption and recovery², in addition to decolorization of triisocyante-based binders ³ and gas membrane separation⁴.

References: 

1. Zhang, Z.-H. et. al., Isolated-alkene-linked porous organic polymers (BIT-POPs): facile synthesis via ROMP and distinguishing overlapping signals in solid-state ¹³C NMR. Polym. Chem. 2021, 12 (46), 6745-6754.
2. Shi, J.;  Peng, S.-Q. et. al., Porous Polypyrrolidines for Highly Efficient Recovery of Precious Metals through Reductive Adsorption Mechanism. Adv. Mater. 2024, 36 (32), 2405731.
3. Peng, S.-Q. et. al., Flexible Porous Polynorbornenes with Alkene Linkage for Decolorizing the Highly Reactive Triisocyanate in Ethyl Acetate. Chem. Mater. 2022, 34 (11), 5184-5193.
4. Ahmed, S. et. al., Mixed matrix membrane for hydrogen separation enhanced by Oxacalix[4]arene-Containing porous organic polymers. Sep. Purif. Technol. 2025, 354, 129308.

Biography

Professor Mu-Hua Huang received his PhD degree from Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Science (ICCAS) in 2006, and then conducted his postdoc in ETH-Zurich Switzerland during 2006-2008 and University of Liverpool UK during 2008-2011, working in the area of synthetic organic chemistry including total synthesis of natural products. Since 2012, he joined the school of materials science and engineering in Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) as a principle investigator. His research interests in BIT include porous organic polymers materials and solid-NMR methodology for polymer materials. Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing Natural Science Foundation, and some industrial partners, his group have conducted research from basic research to engineering applications. He has published more than 50 papers in top journals such as Nature Chemistry, Advanced Materials and so on, as well as more than 20 of authorized invention patents. He has served as vice director of the Spectroscopy Branch of Beijing Physical and Chemical Analysis and Testing Society since 2020.