Efficient capture of airborne PM by nanotubular conjugated microporous polymers based filters under harsh conditions

The exploitation of high-performance filters which can capture and remove airborne particulate matter (PM) in harsh conditions is greatly important to limit the serious effect of PM on human health. Herein, we demonstrate a simple approach for the creation of robust and hierarchically porous filters based on conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs) nanotubes for efficient PM capture. Taking advantage of their inherently superhydrophobic wettability, the CMPs-based filters possess high filtration efficiency of higher than 99.4% for PM0.3 and 99.9% for PM2.5 and PM10, respectively, even in high humidity environment (RH ≥ 94%). The CMPs-based filters show highly physicochemical and thermal stability, e.g., by calcination at 500 °C for 2 h, the filtration efficiency of the samples still reaches as great as 99.4% for both PM2.5 and PM10 with a low-pressure drop of only 10 Pa. In addition, these CMPs-based filters can be easily regenerated and their high PM filtration efficiency remains nearly unchanged by a simple methanol washing. More interestingly, the CMPs-based filters also exhibit superior antibacterial performance, which enables them to sterilize or eliminate the bacteria possibly loaded on PM pollutions, thus showing great potential for various applications such as PM removal, air purification and so on. [Display omitted] •Two kinds of CMPs-based air filters with stable properties were synthesized.•CMPs-based filters show high filtering capacity for PM with low pressure drops.•CMPs-based filters exhibit high efficiency in high humidity (RH≥94%) conditions.•CMPs-based filters are stable in high temperature (up to 500 °C) environments.•CMPs-based filters have a removal efficiency of ca.100% for E. coli.