Highly porous polymer nanofilms

Abstract

According to certain embodiments, a composition comprising a polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM) is described. In some embodiments, the PIM comprises a polyamide comprising a first micropore-generating moiety (e.g., a spirobifluorene moiety) crosslinked with at least one second micropore-generating moiety (e.g., a Tröger's base moiety) via an amide bond. The first moiety and the second moiety may be substantially rigid such that neither moiety contains any carbon-carbon or carbon-heteroatom single bonds. The resulting rigid polyamides formed from the micropore-generating units have advantageous properties, including, for example, sufficiently small pore sizes, large fractional free volumes, and high surface areas. Furthermore, the pore sizes, fractional free volumes, and surface areas of the polyamides may advantageously be tuned depending on the choice of the first moiety and the second moiety.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.