Ye C, Pan Z, Shen Y. Facile Conversion of Polystyrene Waste into an Efficient Sorbent for Water Purification.
Polymers (Basel) 2022;
14:polym14214477. [PMID:
36365471 PMCID:
PMC9655115 DOI:
10.3390/polym14214477]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2022] [Revised: 10/13/2022] [Accepted: 10/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
In this work, we convert a plastic waste, i.e., polystyrene (PS), into a sorbent by a simple sulfonation process. The sulfonation time was optimized and the structures of the resulting sulfonated polystyrene (SPS) was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray and contact angle tests. The results showed that the sulfonation time of 7 h can introduce abundant sulfonic groups and preserve the self-standing structure. Additionally, the SPS has a three-dimensional porous structure and hydrophilic surface because of the presence of numerous sulfonic groups, which could serve as effective binding sites for immobilizing varying pollutants. Furthermore, as a proof-of-concept, the adsorption performance of the SPS foams was evaluated using three pollutants, namely Pb2+, lysozyme and methylene blue. The adsorption isotherms were fitted by the Langmuir and Freundlich models, while the kinetics of the adsorption processes were analyzed using the pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and intraparticle diffusion equations. It was found that the adsorption isotherms of Pb2+ and lysozyme can be better described by the Langmuir model, leading to maximum equilibrium adsorption uptakes of 10.5 and 15.7 mg g−1 for the adsorption of Pb2+ and lysozyme, respectively. Importantly, the pollutant-saturated SPS is readily regenerated by acid washing, and the recovered sorbents exhibit outstanding cyclic performance. The abundant availability of feedstock, facile preparation and regeneration processes render the SPS foams a promising sorbent for practical applications.
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