A novel, highly copper(II)-selective chelating hydrophilic ion exchanger based on imidazole modified poly(glycidyl methacrylate)

Abstract

Anchoring the imidazole ligand bis(imidazo-2-yl)methylaminomethane (bimam) onto poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-trimethylpropane trimethacrylate)(pGMT) by a ring-opening reaction of the pendant epoxy group with the secondary amine group of the ligand, results in a novel hydrophilic resin, which contains 0.59 mmol of the ligand per gram of resin; the ligand binding and the resin structure have been characterized by 13C solid-state CP-MAS NMR spectroscopy and elemental analyses; batch extraction experiments show a very high selectivity in the pH range 1.1–6.0 for Cu2+ over Ni2+, Co2+, Zn2+ and Cd2+, as chloride salts in buffered solutions under competitive conditions.