Proton/Cu(II) and Proton/Ni(II) Ion Exchange Equilibria on Sulfonated Hypercrosslinked Resin Sorption and Surface Complexation Models

Proton/Cu(II) and Proton/Ni(II) ion exchange equilibria on a sulfonated hypercrosslinked styrene-divinylbenzene resin were investigated in order to assess the possibility of using this resin to eliminate heavy metal ions from industrial wastewaters. The ion exchange isotherms were measured at 298 K and 0.01 eq/L total concentration of aqueous external solution using atomic absorption spectrometry. The data were modeled with classical adsorption models and surface complexation model. The results show that both Langmuir isotherm and the surface complexation model describe well the selected systems. The ion exchange equilibrium constants are reported and compared with the corresponding constants of other binary systems given in literature revealing short selectivity series on the strong acid hypercrosslinked resin.