Recovery of molybdenum oxyanions using macroporous copolymer grafted with diethylenetriamine

Abstract

The presented study describes macroporous crosslinked poly(glycidyl methacrylate-co-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) [PGME] functionalized with diethylenetriamine [PGME-deta] as a potential recovery agent for Mo(VI) oxyanions from aqueous solutions. Sorption studies were carried out by varying experimental conditions (pH, time, concentration, temperature). Kinetics of Mo(VI) sorption was investigated in batch (static) experiments, in the temperature range 298–343 K. Sorption dynamics data were fitted to seven chemical-reaction and particle-diffusion models. The kinetics studies showed that Mo(VI) sorption adhered to the pseudo-second-order model under all investigated operating conditions. The sorption kinetics was determined to be governed by both the intraparticle diffusion and the external film diffusion to a lesser extent. The temperature rise promotes the molybdate species removal, with the maximum experimental uptake capacity of 4.02 mmol g−1 at 298 K, at the selected pH which is consistent with the predominance range of hydrolized polynuclear Mo(VI) forms and optimum electrostatic attraction. Keywords: Macroporous crosslinked copolymer, Mo(VI) recovery, Diethylenetriamine, Sorption kinetics