To celebrate the growth and development of the RSC Applied Polymers community and to highlight the remarkable authors who continue to contribute their high quality work to the journal, we would like to share the opinions and insights of these authors through this introductory blog post. Once dubbed #RSCAppliedfirst50, our blog posts aim to give a voice to the authors behind the research and hope that their insights might shed light upon growing challenges and progress in polymer science and its applications.
In this edition, we hear from Sk Abdul Wahed, Mustafa Maqbool, Atikur Hassan and Neeladri Das as they discuss their recently published article, ‘A thiophene-based and sulfur-enriched highly conjugated hyper-crosslinked polymer for efficient sequestration of iodine from various media‘.
An introduction from the authors
The growing dependence on nuclear energy for sustainable electricity production has intensified concerns regarding the safe management of volatile, toxic and radioactive waste, particularly radioactive isotopes of iodine such as 129I and 131I. These isotopes pose severe environmental and health hazards because of their volatility, mobility, persistence, and bioaccumulation tendencies. Conventional wet scrubbing methods used for iodine removal suffer from several drawbacks, including high operational costs, poor selectivity, and the generation of hazardous secondary waste. To address these challenges, we developed a sulfur-rich thiophene-based hyper-crosslinked polymer (Bi-Thio HCP) as an efficient and recyclable adsorbent for iodine sequestration from vapor, aqueous and organic media.
The Bi-Thio HCP was synthesized through a facile Friedel–Crafts alkylation reaction using commercially available 2,2′-bithiophene as the monomer. The resulting porous organic polymer exhibited a high BET surface area of 664 m² g⁻¹ along with hierarchical microporosity and abundant sulfur-containing electron-rich binding sites. Structural characterization using FT-IR, 13C CP-MAS NMR, PXRD, FESEM, TGA, and elemental analysis confirmed the successful formation of a thermally stable and highly porous polymeric framework. The Bi-Thio HCP exhibited CO₂ adsorption capacities of 83 mg g⁻¹ at 273 K and 42 mg g⁻¹ at 298 K, under ambient pressure. These findings highlight the effective CO₂ capture capability of the Bi-Thio HCP, with improved performance relative to that of several other previously reported porous polymeric materials under similar conditions.
The synthesized Bi-Thio HCP also demonstrated a remarkable iodine adsorption performance. In vapor-phase studies, the material achieved an iodine uptake capacity of 1.96 g g⁻¹ at 77 °C, highlighting its strong affinity toward iodine molecules. Additionally, the polymer efficiently removed triiodide ions (I₃⁻) from aqueous solution with a maximum adsorption capacity of 1.66 g g⁻¹ and distribution coefficient (Kd) values exceeding 10⁵ mL g⁻¹, indicating excellent adsorption efficiency and selectivity. An important advantage of Bi-Thio HCP is its recyclability and regeneration capability. Even after five adsorption–desorption cycles, the polymer retained its iodine uptake performance with only a slight reduction in efficiency. This demonstrates practical applicability of Bi-Thio HCP for sustainable radioactive iodine remediation.
Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations were further employed to investigate the interaction mechanism between iodine species and the sulfur-rich polymeric framework. The computational studies revealed favorable interactions between iodine and the electron-rich thiophene moieties, validating the experimentally observed high adsorption capacities.
Overall, this work presents a simple, scalable, and cost-effective strategy for obtaining sulfur-enriched porous organic polymers for efficient radioactive iodine capture. The excellent adsorption capacity, high selectivity, and recyclability of Bi-Thio HCP make it a promising candidate for environmental remediation and nuclear waste management applications.
Meet the authors
Sk Abdul Wahed
Sk Abdul Wahed received his Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University, India. He later joined the Department of Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology Patna as a research fellow under the guidance of Dr. Neeladri Das. His research focuses on the design and synthesis of advanced functional porous polymers for environmental remediation and heterogeneous catalyst applications.
Mustafa Maqbool
Mr Mustafa Maqbool is a Research fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Indian Institute of Technology Patna under the supervision of Dr. Neeladri Das. He has received his M.Sc. degree in Chemistry with a specialization in Inorganic Chemistry from the Patliputra University, Patna, and his B.Sc. degree in Chemistry Honours from Patna University, Patna. His research focuses on rational design of advanced porous functional materials with tuneable porosity and surface functionalities for applications associated with water purification and environmental remediation.
Atikur Hassan
Atikur Hassan received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University (India). He joined the Indian Institute of Technology Patna as a research fellow under the supervision of Dr Neeladri Das. He was awarded a PhD degree in 2024. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Chemistry at KU Leuven, Belgium. His research focuses on designing advanced functional porous materials for applications in energy and environmental sustainability.
Neeladri Das
Dr Neeladri Das received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Utah in 2007 under the supervision of Peter J. Stang. He currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna, India. His research mainly centers on the design and synthesis of advanced functional porous materials, such as porous organic polymers (POPs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), and coordination-driven metallacycles with applications in environmental remediation, catalysis, and biological applications.
A thiophene-based and sulfur-enriched highly conjugated hyper-crosslinked polymer for efficient sequestration of iodine from various media
Sk Abdul Wahed, Mustafa Maqbool, Atikur Hassan and Neeladri Das
RSC Appl. Polym., 2026, Advance Article
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