Adsorption Properties of Polymer Adsorbents

The adsorption properties of the macroporous, hypercrosslinked, and functional polymers were studied. A series of macroporous methacrylate sorbents with different chemical structure and polarity was prepared to examine the effect of polarity and porous structure on the sorption of organic compounds from aqueous solutions.

The sorption of organic compounds by porous copolymers of different porous structure and polarity with laboratory and commercial samples was compared. The sorption capacity of hypercrosslinked copolymers is up to five times higher than that of macroporous samples. The phenols are more strongly sorbed on the methacrylate copolymers bearing ethyleneamine groups than on styrene–divinylbenzene copolymers. The interactions of adsorbates with polymer adsorbent are discussed. The difference between carbonaceous and polymer adsorbents are in variability of composition of later and therefore different mechanism of interactions adsorbate–adsorbent. Polymer adsorbents are superior to the carbonaceous adsorbents in sorption of organic compounds and in simply desorption.

Keywords: polymer adsorbents; macroporous; hypercrosslinked; adsorption; polarity; interaction; organic compounds