Synthesis and adsorption properties of spherical ethyleneglycol monophenylether-formaldehyde chelating resin containing triethylene tetramine

A new kind of chelating resin based on ethyleneglycol monophenylether-formaldehyde polymeric beads containing triethylene tetramine (PB-TETA) was synthesized. Its structure was characterized by Fourier transform-infrared spectra (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The adsorption capacities of the resin for Cu2+, Pb2+, Ag+, Hg2+, Co2+, Zn2+, and Ni2+ were investigated. Specially, the adsorption kinetic and adsorption isotherm of the resin for Cu2+ were also studied in details. The results showed that the resins had the highest affinity to Cu2+ among metal ions above at pH=5. The maximum adsorption capacity was 0.16mmol/g. The kinetics data indicated that the adsorption process were governed by the film diffusion and followed pseudo-first-order rate model for PB-TETA. The isotherm adsorption results indicated that the adsorption of Cu2+ on PB-TETA fitted better with the Langmuir model.