Multifunctional composite materials of rGO with RAFT initiated polymers with terminal amine or protonated amine functionalities for chemical eliminations HCHO and acidic pollutants at ambient conditions

In this paper, the contribution of self-assembled composite material of bifunctional polymer prepared by RAFT polymerization and rGO to the removal of low concentration HCHO and acids from air were systematically studied. Experimental results demonstrate that the condensation reaction between HCHO and the protonated amino group at the terminal of the rGO-py-pAMHS-NH3+-ph chain effectively can eliminate HCHO chemically, resulting in the release of H2O as the sole by-product following oxime bonds formation. rGO alone is incapable of chemically removing gaseous HCHO, but when combined with the py-pAMHS-NH3+-ph, efficient HCHO conversion can be achieved, well elucidating the remarkable HCHO removal capability via rGO-py-pAMHS-NH3+-ph. The HCHO chemical removal performance of composite is evaluated by a self-made device at the 1000 mL/min N2 velocity under 25 °C and 50 % RH and it is found that 206.41 mg of HCHO can be removed in approximately 4 h by using 1.0 g of rGO-py-pAMHS-NH3+-ph. In addition, cycling experiments demonstrate the rGO-py-pAMHS-NH3+-ph possesses good durability. We also find that the rGO-py-pAMHS-NH2-ph has the ability to remove acids when the terminal protonated amino groups have been converted into amine functionalities. This green and zero-carbon emission methodology for chemical removal of HCHO degradation and acid pollutants could provide valuable reference for developing other efficient strategies to remove other pollutants such as VOCs etc.