Water-insoluble Cyclodextrin-epichlorohydrin Polymers Used As Complexing Materials To Remove Contami

Water soluble cyclodextrin epichlorohydrin polymer was proposed and studied in the mid-1960s, especially in environmental applications, which attracted the continuous attention of the scientific community. The most important characteristic of these materials is that they can form inclusion complexes with various pollutants through host guest interaction. This has led to many environmental applications, including water and wastewater treatment, soil remediation, air purification, and concentration or elimination of target substances such as cholesterol. In the early 1990s, our research team began to focus on the synthesis, structural characterization and application of water-insoluble cyclodextrin based materials in the removal of pollutants from wastewater. One of the first results published in 1995 relates to the fact that this material is not a real polymer, but a copolymer of specific structure with two different molecular mobility. 

In 1997, solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy confirmed this point for the first time. Through the homopolymerization of crosslinking agents, these materials are composed of relatively dense, rigid and hydrophobic crosslinking cores and more hydrophilic and less crosslinked surfaces, which contain long and highly mobile hydroxyl alkylated polymer chains. 

In 1998, cyclodextrin based materials were used as adsorbents to effectively remove organic pollutants from polluted water. A year later, a more surprising result showed that a high proportion of cyclodextrin was not necessary to have useful performance in terms of pollutant removal. 

In 2000, dipole decoupled cross polarized magic angle spin and high-resolution magic angle spin spectra were used. The results show that the adsorption mechanism can be explained by two main interactions: cyclodextrin molecules forming inclusion complexes and physical adsorption in polymer networks. 

In 2005, a patent was applied for the synthesis of cross-linked polysaccharides with ionic functional groups, which can simultaneously remove trace metals and organic pollutants from polyamine wastewater. At the end of this century, we carried out the first pilot study to prove that a cyclodextrin material with amphoteric and ion exchange properties can replace the two traditional adsorbents to effectively treat multi polluted wastewater. 

In the early 1980s, our research group first proposed a biological monitoring test using plants as biological indicators to determine and compare the toxicity of industrial wastewater from wood, pulp and paper, textile and surface treatment industries before and after cyclodextrin treatment. 

In the mid-2010's, we confirmed the feasibility of implementing surface treatment industrial discharge water treatment materials on an industrial scale.