Purification of polluted water by effective removal of Cs(I) and Sr(II) using synthetic polymeric material: binary system

In this work, a novel chemically stable and environmentally feasible material was prepared and applied to improve environmental performance by removing Cs(I) and Sr(II) from polluted water. Poly(acrylic acid-acrylonitrile-styrene sodium sulphonate) was prepared by gamma irradiation polymerisation method. The optimum value for the preparation process was desired at an irradiation dose of 5 kGy. The synthetic new polymer was physicochemically studied by determining its functional groups, surface morphology, elemental composition, and surface charge. Additionally, by examining several factors influencing the purification process, sorption capacity and efficiency of the polymeric material were assessed. The findings showed that, for Sr(II) and Cs(I), the sorption from binary solution was 91.04 and 71.47%, respectively. The data for sorption of both ions is well-fitted by the pseudo-second-order equation, which was derived from the kinetic studies. The extended Langmuir equation fits the obtained data better than Freundlich equation, as demonstrated by the sorption isotherm experiments. The maximum capacities were 1.12 and 0.52 mmol/g for Sr(II) and Cs(I), respectively. Findings from the study highlight the potential utilisation of poly(acrylic acid-acrylonitrile-styrene sodium sulphonate) as new effective material for the elimination of Cs(I) and Sr(II) from polluted water.