Selective removal of copper with polystyrene-1,3-diaminourea chelating resin: synthesis and adsorption studies

Copper, as a common heavy metal, is harmful to the environment and to people's health. In this study, green chloromethylated polystyrene bead-1,3-diaminourea (PS-DU) which was intended to adsorb copper ions was synthesized from chloromethylated polystyrene (PS-Cl) and 1,3-diaminourea (DU). The structure was characterized by FT-IR and elemental analysis. The adsorption properties of the resin for Cu(II) were investigated by batch and column experiments. Batch adsorption results suggested that PS-DU had a high adsorption capability for Cu(II) and its maximum saturated adsorption capacity was 168.7 mg g(-1) at 308 K, estimated from the Langmuir model. The resin and its metal complexes were studied by TGA, SEM and XPS. Furthermore, the resin can be eluted easily using 2 mol L-1 HCl. PS-DU not only has a potential application for the selective removal of copper from waste solutions, but also has an application in the analysis and detection areas.