## 2 Results and Discussion  
### Structural Characterization of Polymerized Ionic Liquid Materials  
As illustrated in Scheme 1, the amino-functionalized PILs were synthesized by two different polymerization methods (i.e., traditional free radical polymerization and confined polymerization), and the corresponding products were denoted as PIL (1)-NH\({}_{2}\) and PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\), respectively. The material synthesized after the immobilization of lacase was recorded as PIL-NH\({}_{2}\)-GA-Lac. Figure 1a-c show the morphology of the PIL-NH\({}_{2}\)-GA-Lac composites. The PIL (1)-NH\({}_{2}\) composites did not have regular spheroids, nor were they observed to have a uniform surface or pore structure. Figure 1d-f indicate that PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\) had a spherical structure with a size distribution between 15 and 100 \(\upmu\)m, and the surface of its microsphere was rough, as shown in Figure 1f. In addition, PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\)-GA-Lac (Figure 1g-i) still retained a spherical structure, while its surface was smoother compared with that of the pristine support (PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\)). This may have been due to the coating that formed after the immobilization of the lacase. Surface interactions between the lacase and two supports (i.e., PIL (1)-NH\({}_{2}\) and PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\)) were investigated by FT-IR (Figure 2a). As expected, in the spectra of the IL monomer and PIL-NH\({}_{2}\), a stretching vibration peak of the N-H bond of a primary amine was observed near 3441 cm\({}^{-1}\), and a vibration peak near 1182 cm\({}^{-1}\) also confirmed the presence of a primary amine. The absorption corresponding to the C-H stretching of the -CH=CH of the ILM was observed at 3026 cm\({}^{-1}\), which indicated the aromatic structure of DVB. The peak at 1652 cm\({}^{-1}\) corresponded to the characteristic peak of the carbon-carbon double bonds of -CH=CH\({}_{2}\), and the peak at 709 cm\({}^{-1}\) was the C-H characteristic peak in the double bond connecting the benzene ring, which was not affected by the introduction of functional groups [35]. This also verified the successful synthesis of the polymer skeleton. Moreover, the peaks at 1691 cm\({}^{-1}\) and 1602 cm\({}^{-1}\) represented the presence of an amide I  
Figure 1: Preparation of PILs for lacase immobilization and its application in phenol removal. and an amide II band, respectively, which indicated that laccase was immobilized to the amino-functionalized PIL [36]. Figure 2b shows the specific surface area analysis and pore size distribution curves of the two amino-functionalized PIL supports. It can be observed that the adsorption curve of the isotherm was inconsistent with the desorption curve, resulting in hysteresis loops. The N\({}_{2}\) isothermal adsorption-desorption curves of PIL (1)-NH\({}_{2}\) and PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\) were IV H3 and H4 hysteresis loops, respectively. It was found that PIL (1)-NH\({}_{2}\) had a fairly low specific surface area of 5 cm\({}^{2}\)/g. Nevertheless, PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\) showed a high uptake capacity, having a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 302 cm\({}^{2}\)/g. The formation of a high specific surface area can be attributed to the polymerization of the polystyrene skeleton in the early stage of the procedure [30]. The analysis of the pore size distribution in PIL (2)-NH\({}_{2}\) showed that it had a mesoporous structure with a pore size of mainly 12 nm. Its pore size distribution between 12 and 50 nm can be interpreted as owing to the  
Figure 1: SEM micrographs of PIL (1)–NH\({}_{2}\)–GA–Lac (**a**–**c), PIL (2)–NH\({}_{2}\) (**d**–**f**) and PIL (2)–NH\({}_{2}\)–GA–Lac (**g**–**i**). Figure 2: FTIR spectra of PIL–NH\({}_{2}\) and PIL–NH\({}_{2}\)–GA–Lac (**a**). Nitrogen adsorption–desorption isotherms and BJH pore size distributions of PIL–NH\({}_{2}\) (**b**). diversity of its pore patterns. According to the previous literature, a part of laccase can be immobilized into mesoporous materials, further improving its immobilization efficiency and activity [23; 37].