Enhanced removal of aqueous BPA model compounds using Metalloligs

Abstract

A model compound, 4-(t-butyl)phenol, was used as a substitute for BPA (bisphenol acetone or Bisphenol A) a material used for the production of a large volume of common plastics. Unfortunately, BPA is suspected to have estrogenic properties, and there is a suspicion that even small amounts can have a deleterious effect against humans, especially female infants. The model compound has some similarities to BPA, but lacks some of the serious properties of BPA dust. Since other workers have demonstrated the capability of removing BPA from plastics by extraction with saline or alcohol, we studied whether Octolig, a polyethylenediimine supported on silica gel, or transition metal derivatives of Octolig could be used to remove concentrations for model compounds from aqueous solution. Octolig gave modest results 20%, the manganese (II) and iron (III) derivatives gave poor results, Cuprilig was an improvement over those two Metalloligs, but the cobalt(II) derivative was able to remove up to 56% of the model compound. Two methods were studied, batch and column chromatography. Under the conditions used in this study, the batch method was superior.

Keywords:

• Octolig
• Cuprilig
• Cobaltilig
• Metalloligs
• Manganilig
• Ferrilig
• removal
• capacity
• column chromatography

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge samples of Octolig provided by Metre-General by President Robert L. Alldredge (dec) and by Mark Alldredge. We are grateful to Dr. Randy Larsen for the access to the Shimadzu UV-240 IPC UV-Vis recording spectrophotometer in his laboratory, and we thank Dr. William M. Maza for technical assistance associated with the spectrophotometer.