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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Peoria, Illinois » National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research » Bio-oils Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #243813
Title: Removal of transition metals from dilute aqueous solution by carboxylic acid group containing absorbent polymers

Author
item Liu, Zengshe - Kevin
item REMPEL, G - University Of Waterloo

Submitted to: Hydrology Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/29/2011
Publication Date: 4/22/2011
Citation: Liu, Z., Rempel, G.L. 2011. Removal of transition metals from dilute aqueous solution by carboxylic acid group containing absorbent polymers. Hydrology: Current Research. 2(1):1-6.

Interpretive Summary: In this research, we discovered a new absorbent which can be used to remove copper, cobalt and nickel metal ions from wastewater. Developing high-performance absorbents for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater is highly desirable because of environmental concerns and water quality issues. The separation of copper from cobalt and nickel is also valuable as copper is normally difficult to purify in the presence of the other metals. This absorbent not only shows copper, cobalt and nickel removal capacity but also has good selectivity. For example, it can take 10 times more copper than cobalt and nickel at higher metal concentrations in the presence of table salt. Additionally, these findings are important to industrial scale applications because the absorbent can be regenerated and reused which makes it more economical.

Technical Abstract: A new carboxylic acid group containing resin with cation exchange capacity, 12.67 meq/g has been used to remove Cu2+, Co2+ and Ni2+ ions from dilute aqueous solution. The resin has Cu2+, Co2+ and Ni2+ removal capacity, 216 mg/g, 154 mg/g and 180 mg/g, respectively. The selectivity of the resin to Cu2+ from mixture of Cu2+/Co2+, and Cu2+/Ni2+ was investigated in the presence of 1.0 M or 0.5 M sodium chloride. The sorbed metal ions (Cu2+, Co2+ and Ni2+) are easily removed by stripping with dilute HCl. The sorbed Co2+ and Ni2+ can also be removed by stripping with 1M NaCl.