Abstract
Currently, a lot of attention is paid to polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs). Their particular advantages include effective support fixation, easy preparation, versatility, stability, good mechanical properties and good chemical resistance. The paper presents a review of the literature related to the applications of polymer inclusion membranes containing alkylimidazole derivatives as carriers in the processes of transporting ions of heavy and toxic metals, such as Zn(II), Cu(II), Cd(II), Co(II), Ni(II), and Mn(II). It has been proven that alkylimidazoles exhibit varying complex-forming properties towards metal ions, and that their properties (hydrophobic and alkaline) can be modified easily by changing the size of the alkyl group and its position in the imidazole ring, which allows obtaining efficiently working metal ion carriers. The stability of an imidazole derivative-metal ion complex determines the speed and selectivity of the process of transporting metal ions across polymer inclusion membranes. Also, the morphological structure of polymer inclusion membranes impacts the efficiency of the process involving the release and separation of metal ions.
Highlights
The application of liquid membranes to the separation of metal ions dates back to 1967 [1].Liquid membrane (LM) systems are increasingly being studied by scientists in many fields, for example, analytical, inorganic and organic chemistry, chemical engineering, biotechnology and biomedical engineering and wastewater treatment [2]
Compared to solvent extraction used for separation [10,11,12], membrane processes are characterised by better utilisation of an ion carrier, and they eliminate the environmental hazards which result from the use of solvents utilised in traditional extraction [13]
Kim et al [79] demonstrated that the transport of Cs(I) ions across membranes with a calix[4]-crown-6-derivative did not depend on the structure of the membrane, most authors think [80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91] that the microstructure of the membrane surface is one of the important aspects influencing the transport of metal ions [87,88,89,90,91]
Summary
The application of liquid membranes to the separation of metal ions dates back to 1967 [1]. Among all types of liquid membranes, the highest stability is exhibited by polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) They are produced by pouring a solution being a mixture of a proper polymer, plasticiser and ion carrier on a neutral substrate. 2020, 10, of liquid membranes, the highest stability is exhibited by polymer inclusion membranes (PIMs) This simple technique allows easy modification of composition of theofmembrane, whichwhich is very since since it enables affecting the efficiency and the composition the membrane, is important very important it enables affecting the efficiency selectivity of the metal ion separation process [14,15].
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