Synthesis of chelating polyamine fibers and their adsorption properties for nickel(ii) ions from aqueous solution

Abstract

A novel fiber supported adsorbent PVAF-g-PEI was first developed by grafting polyethylenimine on polyvinyl alcohol fibers (PVAF). In order to increase the nickel(II) adsorption capacity of PVAF-g-PEI, they were chemically modified with amine-rich reagent tetraethylenepentamine by using a crosslinker, glutaraldehyde (GA). The effect of grafting reaction parameters was investigated. The prepared fiber sorbent PA–PVAF was characterized by using FT-IR, SEM, XPS and element analysis and used for the adsorption of nickel(II) from aqueous solutions. The factors influencing nickel(II) adsorption on PA–PVAF, such as contact time, solution pH, temperature and ionic strength, were also studied. At pH 7.0, the sorption capacity of PA–PVAF was 91.03 mg g⁻¹ for nickel(II). The Langmuir isotherm model precisely explained the equilibrium data. Adsorbent–adsorbate kinetics were pseudo second order. Meanwhile, the adsorption–desorption cycle experiments showed that PA–PVAF had good reuse performance.