Chemical Recycling of Expanded Polystyrene Waste: Synthesis of Novel Functional Polystyrene‐Hydrazone Surface for Phenol Removal

Abstract

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) waste was chemically recycled to a novel functional polystyrene‐hydrazone (PSH) surface by acetylation of polystyrene (PS) and then condensation with phenyl hydrazine. The synthesized surface was characterized by the FT‐IR and elemental analysis. Synthesized novel functional PSH surface was successfully applied for the treatment of phenol‐contaminated industrial wastewater by solid‐phase extraction. Multivariant sorption optimization was achieved by factorial design approach. 99.93% of phenol was removed from aqueous solution. FT‐IR study showed the involvement of nitrogen of hydrazone moiety of synthesized surface for the uptake of phenol through the hydrogen bonding.