Kinetics of the adsorption of strontium ions by a crosslinked copolymer containing methacrylic acid functional groups

Abstract

The crosslinked copolymers of ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDM) and methacrylic acid (MA) containing different amounts of MA as weight percentage (MA content = 10.00%, 25.00% and 50.00%) were synthesized by using BPO-DMA initiator system at room temperature. Infrared (FTIR) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to characterize the crosslinked copolymers. The crosslinked copolymer containing 25.00% of MA as weight percentage (w/w) was used as adsorbent for the removal of strontium ions from aqueous solution. The effects of parameters including strontium concentration, agitation time, temperature and pH were examined. Kinetics of the adsorption of strontium ions on the copolymer bearing methacrylic acid functional groups from aqueous solution at various initial strontium concentrations was studied. Goodness of experimental results to the Elovich, fractional powder, pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order models have been examined. The pseudo-second order model provided a high degree of correlation with the experimental data for the adsorption process of strontium ion on the crosslinked copolymer bearing methacrylic acid funtional goups from aqueous solutions.