Synthesis of carboxymethyl starch grafted polyvinyl imidazole (CMS-g-PVIs) and their role as an absorbent for the removal of phenol

Abstract

Cigarette industry plays an important role in the economy of the advanced countries. But the cigarette smoke contains toxic chemicals such as phenol which causes various kind of diseases and affect human life. In this paper, we synthesized carboxymethyl starch grafted poly vinyl imidazole (CMS-g-PVIs) by reacting carboxymehtyl starch (CMS) with vinyl imidazole (VI). The structures of the CMS-g-PVIs were investigated by <sup>1</sup>H NMR and FT-IR. The crystalline properties of the CMS and CMS-g-PVIs were checked by XRD. The thermal properties of the original CMS and CMS-g-PVIs were investigated by TGA analysis. It was found that the modified starches had high thermal stability due to aromatic imidazole ring. The modified starches also showed more rough and distorted morphology as compared to native CMS. The CMS-g-PVIs were subjected for phenol adsorption and showed adsorption efficiencies of 0.170 g/g, 0.190 g/g, 0.192 g/g and 0.199 g/g for CMS, CMS-g-PVI 1, CMS-g-PVI 2 and CMS-g-PVI 3, respectively. Due to higher grafting ratio, CMS-g-PVI 3 showed good adsorption efficiency of 0.199 g/g for phenol. The obtained results showed that the grafting of vinyl imidazole on CMS can increase the adsorption efficiency of native CMS towards phenol.