Preparation and characterization of highly polar polymeric sorbents from styrene–divinylbenzene and vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene for the solid‐phase extraction of polar organic pollutants

This article explores the synthesis of styrene–divinylbenzene resins with different surface areas and the influence of these surface areas on their performance in the solid‐phase extraction of polar compounds from water samples. As expected, increasing the surface areas increases the retention capability of polar compounds. To improve the retention properties, we have used 4‐vinylpyridine instead of styrene in the polymerization and evaluated the influence of the sorbent polarity and surface area on the retention properties. We have found that a compromise is required between the percentage of 4‐vinylpyridine, which increases the polarity of the sorbent, and the percentage of divinylbenzene, which increases the surface area. In the solid‐phase extraction of polar compounds, the results are best for a polymer containing 2.14% N and having a surface area of 710 m²/g. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 41: 1927–1933, 2003