A novel surface imprinted resin for the selective removal of metal-complexed dyes from aqueous solution in batch experiments: ACB GGN as a representative contaminant

Abstract

Metal-complexed dyes are harmful to the environment and human health because they contain heavy metals and complex organic ligands. It is difficult to separate and recover these dyes from wastewater owing to their complex components and poor selectivity of common adsorbents. In this study, a novel surface molecularly imprinted polymer (SMIP) was prepared using 4-vinyl pyridine as the functional monomer and polystyrene resin as the carrier. SMIP showed better adsorption performance than non-imprinted polymer (SNIP) in the whole pH range with the best adsorption capacity at pH 1.5. The correlation coefficients (R2) fitted by Langmuir and Temkin models were greater than 0.97, and the adsorption was a spontaneous exothermic process. The pseudo-second-order and Elovich models fitted the adsorption kinetic curves well. The adsorption capacity of SMIP was approximately 20% higher than that of SNIP in the salt concentration ranging from 2 to 80 mg/L. In selective adsorption experiments, the relative selectivity coefficients (I) of SMIP for competitors were all greater than 2.41, and the Cr (Ⅲ) components of ACB GGN played a more important role in the recognition performance of SMIP than the sulfonic groups. Adsorption mechanism tests revealed that although the adsorption of ACB GGN by SMIP mainly relied on electrostatic attraction, hydrophobic interactions, π-π conjugation, and Cr (Ⅲ) coordination were also involved. These results show that SMIP has excellent selective adsorption properties for ACB GGN and a promising application potential in the treatment of metal-complexed dye wastewater.