Temperature swing adsorption of melamine on thermosensitive poly( N-isopropylacrylamide) cryogels.

Mingquan Liu; Haiyan Liu; Ligai Bai; Yankun Liu; Jia Cheng; Gengliang Yang

In the past few years, polymer-based adsorbents have been emerging as highly effective alternatives to activated carbons for pollutants removal and recovery from industrial effluents. In this article, novel thermosensitive poly( N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) cryogels adsorbents were directly prepared with N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) as a thermosensitive monomer and PEG-20,000 as a porogen at −12 °C by means of an in situ free-radical redox cryopolymerization. Subsequently, PNIPAAm cryogels were further employed to adsorb and desorb melamine through temperature swing adsorption (TSA) between 25 and 50 °C. The adsorption isotherms were correlated to Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. Moreover, the result indicated that the developed PNIPAAm cryogels adsorbents could be utilized effectively to concentrate melamine from aqueous solutions and spiked liquid milk. The cycle of the adsorption and desorption could be repeated without much loss of the melamine adsorbing ability.

SORBENTS; ACTIVATED carbon; MELAMINE; DESORPTION; THERMAL properties of porous materials; MONOMERS; ATMOSPHERIC temperature

Journal of Materials Science, 2011, Vol 46, Issue 14, p4820

0022-2461

Academic Journal

10.1007/s10853-011-5392-0