Preparation of recycled poly s tyrene derivatives to remove heavy metal ions from contaminated water

Abstract

In recent years, numerous researchers have concentrated on the process of turning waste into usable materials. Polystyrene and its modifications have received great attention over the past few decades due to their outstanding ion exchange behavior toward various toxic heavy metals in aqueous solutions. Therefore, this study is concerned with the preparation of three different cationic polymeric resins for the removal of Pb2+, Cd2+, and Fe3+ heavy metal ions from their contaminated water samples based on the sulfonated single-used polystyrene teacup waste (SPS), which was used to prepare sulfonated polystyrene-g-acrylamide monomer (SPS-g-Acryl) and sulfonated polystyrene-g-chitosan (SPS-g-Chit) using commercial chitosan (DD=85%) originally extracted from shrimp cortex. The concentrations of the selected heavy metal ions were measured before and after each experiment with a flame atomic absorption spectrometer (F-AAS). The analytical studies started by exploring the influence of pH (2, 4, 6, and 8) on removing the heavy metal ions Pb2+, Cd2+, and Fe3+ from their aqueous solutions. The obtained results revealed that as the pH of the analyzed ion solution is increased, the removal efficiency for ions increases. All three resins (SPS, SPS-g-Acryl, and SPS-g-Chit) had different removal efficiencies for the investigated ions, with SPS-g-Chit resin.