Preparation of recycled poly s tyrene derivatives to remove heavy metal ions from contaminated water

Abstract

In recent years, numerous researchers have concentrated on the process of turning waste into usable materials. Polystyrene and its modifications have received great attention over the past few decades due to their outstanding ion exchange behavior toward various toxic heavy metals in aqueous solutions. Therefore, this study is concerned with the preparation of three different cationic polymeric resins for the removal of Pb2+, Cd2+, and Fe3+ heavy metal ions from their contaminated water samples based on the sulfonated single-used polystyrene teacup waste (SPS), which was used to prepare sulfonated polystyrene-g-acrylamide monomer (SPS-g-Acryl) and sulfonated polystyrene-g-chitosan (SPS-g-Chit) using commercial chitosan (DD=85%) originally extracted from shrimp cortex. The concentrations of the selected heavy metal ions were measured before and after each experiment with a flame atomic absorption spectrometer (F-AAS). The analytical studies started by exploring the influence of pH (2, 4, 6, and 8) on removing the heavy metal ions Pb2+, Cd2+, and Fe3+ from their aqueous solutions. The obtained results revealed that as the pH of the analyzed ion solution is increased, the removal efficiency for ions increases. All three resins (SPS, SPS-g-Acryl, and SPS-g-Chit) had different removal efficiencies for the investigated ions, with SPS-g-Chit resin.

Recycling of Chitosan-Source Waste to Remove Heavy Meta Ions from Polluted Water

“…A 0.1 g of each of the prepared resins was treated with 25 ml of previously prepared aqueous solutions of Fe(III), Cd(II), and Pd(II) in pH ranges of 2, 4, 6, and 8 [20]. Each bottle containing resins was left at room temperature for an hour of shaking (175 rpm/min) after being filtered.…”

“…The peak at 2926 cm -1 was assigned to aliphatic C-H bond stretching of methylene groups, and at 1315 cm -1 due to C-N stretching. The stretching of the carbonyl amide I group appears as a sharp peak at 1660cm -1 and a peak at 1558 cm -1 related to the N-H amide II bond, and at 1035 cm -1 indicates C-O-C stretching [18][19][20], and Table 2 briefs the main peaks and their assignment.…”

“…Figure 2 shows the FTIR of the extracted chitosan, and the essential assigned peaks are listed in Table 3. The first region observed in the FTIR spectrum of chitosan is the region of amide I, and it shows mainly the disappearance of this peak or leaving a very weak peak present at 1647 cm -1 , giving the impression that a high degree of deacetylation (DD) process takes place, and this is very true since the determined DD is found to be equal to 92.1 as measured by the IR method [20,21].…”