Surface coating of silica with amine functionalized calix[4]arene and its application in metal ion extraction

Abstract

Calixarenes are known as fascinated macromolecules due to their flexible structure that can be cast into different fields of application. These macromolecules have been used as quick and highly selective functional material for the extraction and separation of metal ions. This study explores metal ion removal efficiency of new calixarene coated silica resin from aqueous environment through solid phase extraction. The calixarene-coated silica resin (CCS resin) was synthesized and characterized by FTIR, SEM, XRD, EDS and BET. Static and dynamic adsorption experiments were followed to check the removal efficiency of CCS resin. Adsorption experiment shows that, CCS resin has strong potential for the removal of divalent and trivalent metal ions as compare to monovalent metal ions. Adsorption data have been evaluated by applying Langmuir, Freundlich, D-R models and Thomas dynamic adsorption models. The adsorption isotherm of the CCS resin agreed well with the Langmuir adsorption equation with regression coefficient of 0.99 and good monolayer adsorption capacities such as 3.22, 2.95, 3.04, 3.11, 2.81 and 2.82 (mol.g⁻¹) for Hg²⁺ Pb²⁺ La³⁺ Cr³⁺ Al³⁺ and Fe³⁺ respectively. The D-R isotherm model suggests that the adsorption process follow ion exchange mechanism with mean sorption energy falls in the range of 9.0–16 KJ.mol⁻¹. Moreover, the exhaustion capacity of column was calculated by using the Thomas model, which shows very small q_o value with good fit to data (R² =0.99). The thermodynamic and kinetic studies have also been performed, which reveals that the reaction is spontaneous and exothermic in nature and follows pseudo second-order kinetics.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Calix[4]arene
• silica
• adsorption
• metal ions
• equilibrium models

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. The authors are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Additional information

Funding

We thank the National Centre of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, University of Sindh Jamshoro-Pakistan for the financial support of this work.