Synthesis of Three-Dimensional Porous Poly Sulfide as a Good Absorbent for Removal of Mercury (II) and Lead (II) Ions from Aqueous Solution

Many branches of industry nowadays generate large quantities of waste containing toxic and carcinogenic organic and inorganic compounds. When the permissible concentrations are exceeded, these ions exhibit toxic properties and a non-biodegradable character. Particular attention needs to be paid to metal ions present in aqueous systems. The growing problem of water pollution with heavy metals has led to a great deal of interest in the development of innovative and relatively cheap methods of neutralizing such compounds [1, 2]. The adsorption of these metals with organic support is considered to be one of the most effective ways of removing metal ions from aqueous solutions [3,4]. An advantage of the adsorption process is its reversibility, by way of desorption, which enables the regeneration of the adsorbents used and recovery of the adsorbed compounds, including environmentally harmful metal ions. In this article, first, a new crystalline porous covalent poly sulfide (PCPS) has been synthesized and characterized with IR, SEM, XRD, TGA analyses. In the following, the synthesized three-dimensional poly sulfide was used as absorbent to remove mercury and lead ions from drinking water. The adsorption process was carried out using inorganic salts as metal ion precursors. The kinetics of sorption was followed based on the amounts of metal adsorbed at various time intervals. The PCPS provided enough absorbable sites to overcome mass transfer limitations due to porous structure and showed high performance for removal of mercury (II) and lead (II) ions from aqueous solution.