Equilibrium and Kinetic Study of Lead and Copper Ion Adsorption on Chitosan-Grafted-Polyacrylic Acid Synthesized by Surface Initiated Atomic Transfer Polymerization

In this work, we synthesized chitosan grafted-polyacrylic acid (CS-g-PA) through surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP). We also studied the adsorption process of copper and lead ions onto the CS-g-PA surface. Adsorption equilibrium studies indicated that pH 4.0 was the best pH for the adsorption process and the maximum adsorption capacity over CS-g-PA for Pb2+ ions was 98 mg.g(-1) and for Cu2+ it was 164 mg.g(-1), while for chitosan alone (CS), the Pb2+ adsorption capacity was only 14.8 mg.g(-1) and for Cu2+ it was 140 mg.g(-1). Furthermore, the adsorption studies indicated that Langmuir model describes all the experimental data and besides, pseudo-second-order model was suitable to describe kinetic results for the adsorption process, demonstrating a larger kinetic constant of the process was larger for Pb2+ than Cu2+. Compared to other adsorbents reported, CS-g-PA had comparable or even superior adsorbent capacity and besides, all these results suggest that the new CS-g-PA polymers had potential as an adsorbent for hazardous and toxic metal ions produced by different industries.