Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane

​ In the quest for efficient and sustainable methods to capture volatile pollutants, a  study titled "Porous Silsesquioxane–Imine Frameworks as Highly Efficient Adsorbents for Volatile Iodine" offers promising insights. Published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces , this research introduces a novel class of porous materials designed to effectively adsorb volatile iodine, a significant concern in nuclear waste management. Volatile iodine is primarily released during the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and in the event of nuclear accidents. Its ability to travel long distances and bioaccumulate in the human thyroid makes it particularly dangerous. Current iodine capture technologies—like silver-doped zeolites, activated carbons, and MOFs (metal-organic frameworks)—have varying degrees of success but suffer from drawbacks including limited capacity, high cost, thermal instability, or difficulty in regeneration. Hence, there's an urgent need for adsorbent material...

The simplest method of preparing amides is by reacting the amines with carboxylic acids (for example in the presence of DCC as a coupling agent), acid anhydrides, esters or acyl halides. In the work by Janeta et all ( Chemistry - A European Journal 2014, 20, 15966-15974 ), the reactions were carried out with the use of acid chlorides, which were selected because these reactions do not require an additional coupling agent, the reaction is rapid even at reduced temperature, and the resulting by-product (ammonium salt) is easy to remove. The reaction of amines with acid chlorides, the products of which are amides (Schotten-Baumann reaction), is usually carried out in a two-phase system. The alkaline aqueous phase containing sodium hydroxide neutralizes the acid ammonium salt and the product remains in the organic phase. However, as under these conditions the silsesquioxane core decomposes (a strong base breaks the Si–O–Si bonds), the solution was to use triethylamine as a neutralizing age...