Effect of synthesis conditions of polyallylamine-beads-glucose (PAA-Glu) on boron adsorption

Abstract

In this study, we assessed the boron adsorption characteristic of our synthesized adsorbent: polyallylamine-beads-glucose (PAA-Glu) by using the adsorption amount and adsorption site availability (ASA), and determined the optimum conditions for PAA-Glu synthesis. ASA is our proposed indicator and it expresses the percentage of the experimental equilibrium adsorption in relation to the theoretical equilibrium adsorption and indicates the availability of adsorption sites (hydroxyl groups) on adsorbents. We investigated the effects of the degree of cross-linking (20, 40 and 60 %), the introduction amount of α-D-glucose (40, 60 and 80 %), and the introduction temperature (30–150 °C) as regards PAA-Glu on the boron adsorption amount. The boron adsorption amount for PAA-Glu (20 % cross-linked, 30 °C) was superior to that for another degree of cross-linked PAA-Glu. However, the ASA for PAA-Glu (60 % cross-linked, 30 °C) exhibited the best value in this synthesized PAA-Glu. Furthermore, we examined the introduction temperature at which glucose was introduced to PAA-Glu (20 % cross-linked) in the 30–150 °C range, and we confirmed that the optimum temperature range for the synthesis of PAA-Glu was 60–80 °C. We found that controlling the space between the main chains of the polymer by using a spacer such as a cross-linker allowed boron molecules to come and go and led to an improvement in the boron adsorption amount and ASA.