Radiation synthesis of functionalized polypropylene fibers and their application in the treatment of the groundwater in el dakhla oasis, western desert of Egypt

الملخص EN

Functionalized polypropylene (PP) fibers were prepared by radiation induced graft copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) and 4-vinyl pyridine (4-VP) binary system onto the (PP) fibers.

Preparation conditions such as type of solvent used, commoner composition and total concentration were investigated to obtain a suitable grafting degree for the proposed application as a metal recovery polymer.

The effect of pH on the adsorption of individual metal ions was investigated to estimate the optimum pH value for each metal at which maximum adsorption takes place.

It was found that the sorption capacity of the functionalized fiber was 247.3, 221.3, 202.1, 122.06, 128.89, 135.4, 161.5, and 104.1 (mg / g) for Pb, Cd, Zn Cu, Fe, Mn, Sr and Al respectively.

Dynamic metal uptake behavior and the thermodynamics parameters of the metal adsorption process were studied.

The results illustrate the values of the adsorption rate for each metal ion and that the metal chelation by functionalized PP fibers is an exothermic process.

Re-generation test shows that the prepared fibers kept their capacity unchanged up to, at least, 10 cycles.

The prepared functionalized PP fibers were used to treat some groundwater samples containing high concentrations of iron and manganese collected from El Dakhla Oasis which is located at the Western Desert of Egypt.

The obtained results show that the prepared fibers acquire a promising potential in improving the quality of water resources.