Investigation of adsorption behaviors of Cu(II), Pb(II), and Cd(II) from water onto the high molecular weight poly (arylene ether sulfone) with pendant carboxyl groups

ABSTRACT Three types of high molecular weight polyarylether adsorbents with different molar ratios of carboxyl and phenylene were designed and synthesized through direct polycondensation in mixture solvents. The as‐prepared polymers were characterized by FTIR, 1 H‐NMR, TGA, DSC, SEM, EDS, and GPC in order to study the regularity of polymeric adsorption/thermostability performances. Because of the highest molar ratio of carboxyl and phenylene, PAES‐C‐Na presented the highest adsorption capacity of Cu 2+ compared to PAESK‐C‐Na and PAES; therefore, PAES‐C‐Na was opted to study the impacts of adsorbent dosage, pH, contact time, and initial concentration on the adsorption of Pb 2+ and Cd 2+ . Moreover, a kinetic analysis revealed that the adsorption process followed pseudo‐second‐order model, while the thermodynamic experimental data properly fitted with the Freundlich model. The multi‐component competitive adsorption capacity followed the order Pb 2+ > Cu 2+ > Cd 2+ . Additionally, the regeneration tests indicated that PAES‐C‐Na still possessed the excellent adsorption capacity after several recycles. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132 , 41984.