Abstract
The article focuses on the preparation of a novel adsorbent by grafting amino-terminated hyperbranched polymer to cotton fibers and the adsorption of heavy metal ions from aqueous solution. The prepared novel adsorbent was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The experimental results show that the amino-terminated hyperbranched polymer was grafted to the oxidized cotton fibers, and the adsorbent with amino-terminated hyperbranched polymer was successfully obtained. The grooves on the surface of the grafted cotton fiber were filled with amino-terminated hyperbranched polymer. The adsorption experiments show that the adsorption amount of Cu2+ and Pb2+ was up to 16.1 mg/g and 13.4 mg/g with the metal ion concentration of 319.5 ppm and 315.9 ppm, respectively. When the dosage of adsorbent was 1.5 g in 100 mL metal ion solution, the adsorption rate of Cu2+ and Pb2+ reached 73.5 wt. % and 71.2 wt.%, respectively. The use of the adsorbent for the removal of metal ions is considered to be efficient and have great potential for practical applications.