Preparation and characterization of polyacrylamide/palygorskite

Polyacrylamide/palygorskite(PAM/PA) as prepared by solution polymerization of acrylamide (AM) on the γ-methacryloxypropyl trimethoxy-silane (KH-570) modified palygorskite (PA). The influence of monomer concentration, polymerization time, initiator concentration and polymerization temperature on mercury adsorption of PAM/PA was investigated. The maximum adsorption capacity was 135.5 mg/g at optimum polymerization conditions. PAM/PA was characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).