Iminodiacetic acid functionalized cation exchange resin for adsorptive removal of Cr(VI), Cd(II), Ni(II) and Pb(II) from their aqueous solutions.

Iminodiacetic acid functionality has been introduced on styrene-divinyl benzene co-polymeric beads and characterized by FT-IR in order to develop weak acid based cation exchange resin. This resin was evaluated for the removal of different heavy metal ions namely Cd(II), Cr(VI), Ni(II) and Pb(II) from their aqueous solutions. The results showed greater affinity of resin towards Cr(VI) for which 99.7% removal achieved in optimal conditions following the order Ni(II)>Pb(II)>Cd(II) with 65%, 59% and 28% removal. Experiments were also directed towards kinetic studies of adsorption and found to follow first order reversible kinetic model with the overall rate constants 0.3250, 0.2393, 0.4290 and 0.2968 for Cr(VI), Ni(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) removal respectively. Detailed studies of Cr(VI) removal has been carried out to see the effect of pH, resin dose and metal ion concentration on adsorption and concluded that complexation enhanced the chromium removal efficacy of resin drastically, which is strongly pH dependent. The findings were also supported by the comparison of FT-IR spectra of neat resin with the chromium-adsorbed resin.