Textural Engineering of Phenolic Polymers with a Robust Mesoporous Framework

A soft chemistry synthetic strategy based on a  Friedel–Crafts alkylation reaction is developed for the textural engineering of phenolic resin (PR) with a robust mesoporous framework to avoid serious framework shrinkage and maximize retention of organic functional moieties. By taking advantage of the structural benefits of molecular bridges, the resultant sample maintains a bimodal micromesoporous architecture with well-preserved organic functional groups, which is effective for carbon capture. Moreover, this soft chemistry synthetic protocol can be further extended to nanotexture other arene-based polymers with robust frameworks.