Metal ion binding properties of synthetic vinyl resins

The synthesis of a water‐insoluble chelating resin was carried out by radical copolymerization of 4‐vinylpyridine and N‐hydroxymethyl acrylamide with subsequent crosslinking. Both the crosslinked reference homopolymers of 4‐vinylpyridine and N‐hydroxymethyl acrylamide were also synthesized. The resins were characterized by elemental analyses and FT‐IR spectroscopy. The ability of these resins to bind copper(II), iron(II), iron(III) and uranyl ions as well as the elution of the metal ions from the loaded resins were studied. For uranyl ions, pH 1 was the optimum sorption pH value for all the resins. Sorption selectivity from the binary mixture Cu(II) + U(VI) was studied at the optimum sorption pH value. Finally, the uranium(VI) sorption isotherms, binding constants, and ΔG°, ΔH° and ΔS° corresponding to the uranium(VI) sorption process were calculated.