Facile conversion of nitrile to amide on polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1)

•Treatment of PIM-1 with H2O2 afforded the PIM-CONH2 with excellent yield and high purity.•The structure and properties of PIM-CONH2 was fully characterized by FT-IR, NMR, UV-Vis and BET surface area etc.•PIM-CONH2-24h possessed the apparent BET surface area of 527 m2 g−1 after methanol soaking treatment.

This paper presents an interesting new development in the area of chemical modification of PIM-1. The amide PIM-1 (named as PIM-CONH2) was synthesized by post-synthesis modification method using hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as reagent at room temperature. The protocol enjoys mild reaction conditions, easy work-up procedure and high conversion yield (i.e. nearly 100% of nitrile group converts to corresponding amide group.) 13C NMR and FT-IR spectra indisputably confirmed that pure PIM-CONH2 was obtained with no traces of nitrile and carboxylic acid groups. The PIM-CONH2 conveys high solubility in polar aprotic solvents such as DMSO, DMF, and NMP. The fully-converted sample PIM-CONH2-24h possessed the apparent BET surface area of 527 m2 g−1, which is among the highest ever reported in various post-synthesis modified PIM-1 materials.

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