Rational Design of an Ion-Imprinted Polymer for Aqueous Methylmercury Sorption

Methylmercury (MeHg+) is a mercury species that is very toxic for humans, and its monitoring and sorption fromenvironmental samples of water are a public health concern. In this work, a combination of theory and experiment was used to rationally synthesize an ion-imprinted polymer (IIP) with the aim...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Mesa, Ruddy L., Villa, Javier E. L., Khan, Sabir, Peixoto, Rafaella R. Alves, Morgano, Marcelo A., Gonçalves, Luís Moreira, Sotomayor, Maria D. P. T., Picasso, Gino
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2020
Country:Brasil
Institution:Instituto de Tecnologia de Alimentos (ITAL)
Repository:Repositório do Instituto de Tecnologia de Alimentos
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:http://repositorio.ital.sp.gov.br:123456789/122
Online Access:http://repositorio.ital.sp.gov.br/jspui/handle/123456789/122
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Bulk polymerization
Computational modelling
Environmental analysis
Imprinting technology
Description
Summary:Methylmercury (MeHg+) is a mercury species that is very toxic for humans, and its monitoring and sorption fromenvironmental samples of water are a public health concern. In this work, a combination of theory and experiment was used to rationally synthesize an ion-imprinted polymer (IIP) with the aim of the extraction of MeHg+ from samples of water. Interactions among MeHg+ and possible reaction components in the pre-polymerization stage were studied by computational simulation using density functional theory. Accordingly, 2-mercaptobenzimidazole (MBI) and 2-mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT), acrylic acid (AA) and ethanol were predicted as excellent sulfhydryl ligands, a functional monomer and porogenic solvent, respectively. Characterization studies by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) revealed the obtention of porous materials with specific surface areas of 11m2 g1 (IIP–MBI–AA) and 5.3m2 g1 (IIP–MBT–AA). Under optimized conditions, the maximum adsorption capacities were 157 g g1 (for IIP–MBI–AA) and 457 g g1 (for IIP–MBT–AA). The IIP–MBT–AA was selected for further experiments and application, and the selectivity coe cients were MeHg+/Hg2+ (0.86), MeHg+/Cd2+ (260), MeHg+/Pb2+ (288) and MeHg+/Zn2+ (1510), highlighting the material’s high a nity for MeHg+. The IIP was successfully applied to the sorption of MeHg+ in river and tap water samples at environmentally relevant concentrations.

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