Preparation and evaluation of poly-o-toluidine sulfochromate as a promising nanocomposite for selective adsorption of copper

ABSTRACT

In this study, Poly-o-toluidine sulfochromate (POTSC) nancomposite was synthesised for adsorption of Cu(II) from aqueous solutions. The structure of POTSC nanocomposites was characterised by FTIR, XRD, SEM, EDX, and TG-DTA techniques. The calculated average crystallite size of OTS and POTSC was 15 and 24 nm respectively. The effects of various parameters such as pH, adsorbent weight, time, and initial Cu(II) concentration on the absorption capacity have been studied. Results showed that the adsorption maximum occurs at pH 5 and adsorption equilibrium was achieved in 30 min. The adsorption capacity of Cu(II) was found to be 30.3 mg/g and kinetic modelling was used to described the adsorption mechanism of Cu(II). The isotherm study reveals that the adsorption data provided by the Langmuir model is stronger than that of Freundlich. The adsorption efficiencies of Cu (II), Zn(II), Ni(II), Ga(II), and Cd(II) on POTSC nanocomposite were 77, 7, 22.7, 2, and 2.8% respectively, which implied that POTSC nanocomposite is good selectivity for Cu (II) than other cations. POTSC nanocomposite may be used to separate copper radionuclides from the irradiated targets.

KEYWORDS:

• Poly-o-toluidine
• sulfochromate
• nanocomposite materials
• copper
• adsorption

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the staff members and colleagues of the Nuclear Fuel Technology Department, Hot Laboratories Centre, Atomic Energy Authority for their cooperation, and useful help offered during this work.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.