Reactive and functional clay through UV-triggered thiol-ene interfacial click reaction

Clay/mercaptosuccinic acid hybrids were prepared through radical thiol-ene coupling between methacrylate-silanized clay and mercaptosuccinic acid. The clay surface was modified by 3-trimethoxysilylpropylmethacrylate, then mercaptosuccinic acid was clicked by ultraviolet (UV)-triggered thiol-ene addition reaction at 365nm. Pristine and modified clays were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), attenuated total reflection (ATR) and XPS. The clay/mercaptosuccinic acid material was employed as an adsorbent for the removal of Pb(II) from aqueous solutions. Kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption of Pb(II) followed the pseudo-first-order equation while the Langmuir model fitted the adsorption isotherm. The maximum adsorption was found to be 74.7mg/g for an equilibrium time of similar to 80min. UV-triggered thiol-ene reaction is demonstrated to be an easy and elegant pathway for designing reactive and functional clay for environmental and other applications. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.