Competitive heavy metal removal by poly(2‐acrylamido‐2‐methyl‐1‐propane sulfonic acid‐<i>co</i>‐itaconic acid)

Abstract

Abstract The competitive removal of Pb 2+ , Cu 2+ , and Cd 2+ ions from aqueous solutions by the copolymer of 2‐acrylamido‐2‐methyl‐1‐propane sulfonic acid (AMPS) and itaconic acid (IA), P(AMPS‐ co ‐IA), was investigated. Homopolymer of AMPS (PAMPS) was also used to remove these ions from their aqueous solution. In the preparation of AMPS–IA copolymer, the molar percentages of AMPS and IA were 80 and 20, respectively. In order to observe the changes in the structures of polymers due to metal adsorption, FTIR spectra by attenuated total reflectancetechnique and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) pictures of the polymers were taken both before and after adsorption experiments. Total metal ion removal capacities of PAMPS and P(AMPS‐ co ‐IA) were 1.685 and 1.722 mmol Me 2+ /g polymer , respectively. Experimental data were evaluated to determine the kinetic characteristics of the adsorption process. Competitive adsorption of Pb 2+ , Cu 2+ , and Cd 2+ ions onto both PAMPS and P(AMPS‐ co ‐IA) was found to fit pseudo‐second‐order type kinetics. In addition, the removal orders in the competitive adsorption of these metal ions onto PAMPS and P(AMPS‐ co ‐IA) were found to be Cd 2+ &gt; Pb 2+ &gt; Cu 2+ and Pb 2+ &gt; Cd 2+ &gt; Cu 2+ , respectively. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.