Uptake Of Sodium Lauryl Sulphate By Acrylonitrile And Methyl Methacrylate Based Porous Polymeric Adsorbents

Abstract

Surfactants, used extensively in textile mills and allied industries, are among the most corrmon pollutants of water. Various adsorbents such as active carbon, soils, etc. have been investigated for their uptake from aqueous solutions. In all these cases, the reuse of adsorbents is either impossible or the reactivation is incomplete, laborious and costly. Porous polymeric adsorbents provide an alternate approach for the uptake of detergents. Such porous polymeric adsorbents based on the copolymers of acrylonitrile divinylbenzene and methyl methacrylate — divinylbenzene, and having various characteristic properties such as polarity, porosity, surface area and pore size distribution, have been studied for the uptake of sodium lauryl sulphate from aqueous solution. The kinetics of the uptake of the detergent has been investigated. The effect of parameters like, pH, electrolyte content of the equilibrating solution on the uptake of detergent from solution and the operational conditions such as loading and its subsequent elution under dynamic conditions have been looked into. The uptake of the detergent on these porous polymeric adsorbents has been found to be reversible and the results obtained indicate their potential use for pollution abatement.