Synthesis and characterization of some chelating polymers bearing maleic acid and/or sodium maleate moieties for removal of some toxic heavy metal ions.

Chelating copolymers (CCPs) bearing carboxylic acid and/or carboxylate moieties based on ethyl methacrylate in the absence and in the presence of divinyl benzene as a crosslinker were prepared via new emulsion copolymerization route. The obtained CCPs were characterized by (FT-IR, ¹HNMR, TEM, GPC, and TGA). Furthermore, the prepared CCPs have been tested as adsorbents for various toxic heavy metal ions. They showed higher sorption capacities toward transition metal ions such as (Co(II) and Ni(II)) and much less sorption capacity for (Cd(II) and Pb(II)). The optimum conditions for metal ion uptake such as time, pH, and comonomer concentrations of different weight percent (wt%) as well as the sorption kinetics were investigated. A high recovery about 90–93 % was obtained using HCl as an eluent agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]