Polyacrylonitrile and Hybrid SBA-15: A Robust Composite Material for Use as Copper (II) Adsorbent in Flow Conditions

LOMBARDO, M. V.; SOLER-ILLIA, G. J. A. A.

JOURNAL OF INORGANIC AND ORGANOMETALLIC POLYMERS AND MATERIALS

SPRINGER

Año: 2019 vol. 30 p. 1206 - 1217

1574-1443

Novel processes for treating industrial wastewater containing metals are needed nowadays in order to meet environmentallysafe water treatment standards. Attention has been paid to innovative adsorbents that permit to trap and subsequently desorbions, permitting their selective recovery. In this work, we design a robust porous exchange matrix able to adsorb Cu (II) (oftenfound in industrial wastewater), that meets the following requirements: (a) to perform copper desorption with a minimumcondition modification, (b) to preconcentrate already desorbed ions, (c) to be reusable, and (d) to be able to work in flowcondition. A hybrid mesoporous material matrix (HMM) composed of a hybrid mesoporous filler embedded into a highlyaccessible polymer was chosen as adsorbent. The mesoporous filler is mesoporous silica (SBA-15) chemically modifiedthrough post-grafting with amino groups. The composite material was prepared by combining the adsorbent material andpolyacrylonitrile (PAN). The system could be easily processed in columns of fixed bed in order to perform copper adsorp-tion?desorption. Under these conditions, a Cu (II) loading of 1.2 × 10 −3 mol per gram of adsorbent material was obtained.Copper desorption was performed in HCl 0.1 M, achieving a final concentration at least 5 times higher than the initial one.The material was reused 10 times without losing its adsorption capacity, demonstrating its potentiality for water treatment.