Abstract
Spherical particles of α-, β- and γ-cyclodextrin (CD) polymers to efficiently remove phenol from waste water were prepared by reverse suspension polymerization with epichlorohydrin as crosslinker in liquid paraffin. By controlling the amounts of crosslinker and water, well-defined spherical polymer particles with controllable size were obtained. Due to the selective inclusion associations between CD groups and phenol, these CD spherical polymer particles were demonstrated to be ideal candidates for removal of phenol. Among them β-CD polymer particles showed the best performance. The kinetics and isothermal equilibrium models were used to fit the experimental data of phenol removal from aqueous solution using these CD polymer particles. It was found that the kinetics followed the Ho and Mckay equation, suggesting that the adsorption process of phenol was controlled by diffusion and the host-guest interaction between CD and phenol. Equilibrium isothermal data can be well fitted by the Freundlich equation. The negative free energy change indicated the spontaneous nature of adsorption of phenol by α-, β- and γ-CD spherical polymer particles, while the lowest free energy for β-CD polymer reflected its best adsorption ability, compared to α- and γ-CD polymer particles.
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