Hypercrosslinked Phenolic Polymers with Well-Developed Mesoporous Frameworks

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 micro‐mesoporous 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. Soft chemistry: The hypercrosslinking of aromatic backbones through the Friedel–Crafts alkylation reaction is demonstrated as an efficient pathway for the nanotexturation of phenolic polymers with a robust mesoporous framework. The method takes advantage of bridge‐derived micropores for the insertion of solvents for template extraction.