Iodine, an indispensable element for both industry and biology, suffers from scarcity in the earth's crust and inefficiency in conventional recovery technologies. Herein, inspired by the iodide oxidation pathway in thyroid follicular lumens, we designed a bioinspired micro-ionic-reactor based on a porous organic polymer (MIR-POP) that integrates iodide capture with in situ photooxidative conversion. The cationic framework of MIR-POP enables ultrafast electrostatic enrichment of iodide (I-) ions within confined pores, where subsequent light irradiation drives their transformation into molecular iodine and polyiodide species. This bioinspired strategy outperforms adsorption-based materials and achieves a record uptake capacity of 853.06 mg g-1. Moreover, MIR-POP exhibits remarkable selectivity toward competing anions and delivers high recovery efficiencies of 93.8% in simulated mining wastewater and 85.8% in natural brine, highlighting its promising potential in complex environments. This bioinspired microreactor platform opens a new avenue for selective I- ions recovery and in situ conversion, advancing both environmental remediation and strategic iodine resource recovery.
Cao et al. (Wed,) studied this question.