Structure Analysis of Polyhalogenated Persistent Organic Pollutants by the Crystalline Sponge Method

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are harmful organic compounds remaining in the environment for a long time, but are slowly degraded in the environment. Structural elucidation of the scarce amount of the POP degradation products is highly desired to understand the degradation process of the POPs. Herein, we demonstrated the crystalline sponge (CS) method, a crystallization-free X-ray crystallography technique on the nanogram to microgram scale, is quite efficient for the analysis of a series of representative POP compounds. The X-ray structures of three POPs were reported for the first time. Halogen interactions take a key role in the molecular recognition in the CS pores.