Efficient cavity-enhanced adsorption and recovery of low-concentration ammonia on pillar[5]arenes

[Display omitted] •Pillar[5]arenes including P[5]Q and OHP[5] were designed and prepared.•P[5]Q had excellent performance for low concentration NH3 adsorption.•The cavity in P[5]Q could enhance NH3 adsorption capacities.•P[5]Q showed good reusability and stability in multicycles. Ammonia (NH3) capture has great implications for environmental protection and resource recovery. Developing effective and recyclable adsorbent materials to remove low-concentration NH3 in industrial waste gas is critical. Here, solid adsorbents per-hydroxylated pillar[5]arene (OHP[5]) and pillar[5]quinone (P[5]Q) with well-designed functional groups were synthesized and evaluated for NH3 adsorption. The results showed that both materials have high NH3 uptake capacity and excellent cycle stability. P[5]Q showed higher NH3 capacity (15.4 mmol/g) than OHP[5] (11.5 mmol/g) at ambient conditions (293.2 K and 1.0 bar). Dynamic breakthrough experiments showed that P[5]Q had good separation performance on low concentration NH3. Characterizations (including FTIR, SEM, and XPS) and density functional theory (DFT) studies revealed that the adsorption strength for NH3 on P[5]Q possessing CO groups was stronger than OHP[5] composed of phenolic hydroxyls. Also, the electron-accepting CO groups on P[5]Q could change the intramolecular charge distribution, in which an amount of NH3 enters and stores in the electron-deficient internal cavity of P[5]Q. It is demonstrated that P[5]Q with the suitable cavity has good potential for separating low concentration NH3 from industrial waste gas.