Harnessing of newly tailored poly (acrylonitrile)-starch nanoparticle graft copolymer for copper ion removal via oximation reaction as a calorimetric sensor

Purpose Herein, this study aims to use our recently tailored and fully characterized poly acrylonitrile (AN)-starch nanoparticle graft copolymer having 60.1 graft yield percentage as a starting substrate for copper ions removal from wastewater effluent after chemical modification with hydroxyl amine via oximation reaction as a calorimetric sensor. Design/methodology/approach The calorimetric sensor batch technique was used to determine the resin's adsorption capacity, while atomic adsorption spectrometry was used to determine the residual copper ions concentration in the filtrate before and after adsorption. This was done to convert the copolymer's abundant nitrile groups into amidoxime groups, and the resulting poly (amidoxime) resin was used as a copper ion adsorbent. To validate the existence of amidoxime groups, the resin was qualitatively characterized using a rapid vanadium ion test and instrumentally using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectra and scanning electron microscopy morphological analysis. Findings At pH 7, 400 ppm copper ions concentration and 0.25 g adsorbent at room temperature, the overall adsorption potential of poly (amidoxime) resin was found to be 115.2 mg/g. The process's adsorption, kinetics and isothermal analysis were examined using various variables such as pH, contact time, copper ion concentration and adsorbent dose. To pretend the adsorption kinetics, various kinetics models, including pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order, were applied to the experimental results. The kinetic analysis indicated that the pseudo-second-order rate equation promoted the development of the chemisorption phase better than the pseudo-first-order rate equation. In the case of isothermal investigations, a study of observed correlation coefficient ( R 2 ) values indicated that the Langmuir model outperformed the Freundlich model in terms of matching experimental data. Originality/value To the best of the author's information, there is no comprehensive study for copper ions removal from waste water effluent using the recently tailored and fully characterized poly (AN)-starch nanoparticle graft copolymer having 60.1 graft yield percentage as a starting substrate after chemical modification with hydroxyl amine via oximation reaction as a calorimetric sensor.