Selective and Simultaneous Removal of Ni (II) and Cu (II) Ions from Industrial Wastewater Employing a Double Ni-Cu-Ion Imprinted Polymer

In this paper, a Ni-Cu ion imprinted polymer was synthesized and employed for the simultaneous removal of high levels of copper (II) and nickel (II) ions from wastewater. Bulk polymerization technique employing methacrylic acid, ethylene glycol dimethylacrylate, azobisisobutyronitrile as the functional monomer, cross linker and initiator respectively was used to synthesize the ionic imprinted polymer. Rigorous template removal was conducted employing increasing hydrochloric acid concentration ranging from 1.0 M to 10.0 M. The chemical characteristic of the prepared polymer was evaluated by employing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. Adsorption parameters including contact time, pH and prepared polymer dosage were investigated and found to be 12 min, 7.0 and 665.5 mg/L respectively. The prepared Ni-Cu ions imprinted polymer showed excellent copper (II) and nickel (II) ions removal efficiency from wastewater as indicated by the 89.1% and 83.2% at n = 3 removal of total copper (II) and nickel (II) ions in the wastewater sample.