A novel non-imprinted adsorbent with superior selectivity towards high-performance capture of Ag(I)

Ion imprinted polymer (IIP) technology is traditionally used to selectively recover heavy metal ions from wastewater, but the low adsorption capacity and high cost has restricted its large-scale practical application. Exploring a novel method with high selectivity and low cost to capture heavy metals is necessary but very challenging. Herein, we first report a highly selective and high-performance absorbent via free radical polymerization of thiolactone functionalized acrylamide (named as PAM-TL). The PAM-TL demonstrated much higher capacity (145.2 mg/g) for Ag(I), which is 5.8 times that of corresponding IIP (25.07 mg/g). Moreover, the distribution coefficient of PAM-TL (576.1) was 5.1 times that of the IIP material (113.8). Furthermore, PAM-TL absorbent was also equipped with superior stability and recyclability (outstanding adsorption performance after six cycles). The excellent performance was attributed to the abundant binding site density and the strong interaction between absorbent and Ag(I), which was determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and elemental analysis. This work provides a novel approach for highly effective and selective capturing heavy metal ions, which is of great significance to actual applications in wastewater treatment.