Abstract
The paper evaluates the adsorptive potential of thiourea-modified poly(acrylonitrile-co-acrylic acid), (TA-poly(AN-co-AA)) for the uptake of cationic methylene blue (MB) from aquatic environments via a batch system. TA-poly(AN-co-AA) polymer was synthesized through redox polymerization and modified with thiourea (TA) where thioamide groups were introduced to the surface. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), CHNS and Zetasizer were used to characterize the physico-chemical and morphological properties of prepared TA-poly(AN-co-AA). Afterwards, it was confirmed that incorporation of thioamide groups was successful. The adsorption kinetics and equilibrium adsorption data were best described, respectively, by a pseudo-second-order model and Freundlich model. Thermodynamic analysis showed the exothermic and spontaneous nature of MB uptake by TA-poly(AN-co-AA). The developed TA-poly(AN-co-AA) polymer demonstrated efficient separation of MB dye from the aqueous solution and maintained maximum adsorption capacity after five regeneration cycles. The findings of this study suggested that synthesized TA-poly(AN-co-AA) can be applied successfully to remove cationic dyes from aquatic environments.
Highlights
Water is usually critical for human life and for the survival of almost all ecosystems
(all procured from R&M Chemicals, Essex, UK), acrylonitrile (AN), acrylic acid (AA); Aluminium oxide (MERCK, Darmstadt, Germany), methanol and ethanol were purchased from Systerm ChemAR (Shah Alam, Malaysia)
A thiourea-functionalized poly(acrylonitrile-co-acrylic acid) polymer was synthesized by redox polymerization, and its adsorption capacity towards methylene blue (MB) investigated via a batch system
Summary
Water is usually critical for human life and for the survival of almost all ecosystems It is a critical feedstock in a variety of key industries such as food, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, electronics, printing, paper, leather, plastics and cosmetics. Developing novel facile adsorbents with simple preparation route, relatively inexpensive, highly efficient and regeneration ability is required Polymeric adsorbents and their derivatives such as polyurea, polythiophenes and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) have been synthesized for wastewater treatment, removing industrial dyes, pharmaceuticals and heavy metals. MB is selected as a linear molecular structure cationic dye compare to malachite green (MG) with triangular molecular structure reported in our previous work [25] This is to ascertain whether molecular structure directly affects their adsorption isotherm using the same modified poly(AN-co-AA) adsorbent. Influence of key operation parameters such as adsorbent dose, initial concentration, pH and temperature on sorption capacity of the as-synthesized polymeric materials was explored
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