Effect of the Number of Donor Atoms in Calix[4]arene Derivatives for Selective Complexation and Extraction of Mercury(II) Cations, Thermodynamics and Extraction Studies

Water pollution due to gold mining activity is increasingly worrying. One way to selectively mitigate it is through the use of complexing agents such as calixarenes, which selectively functionalized with soft donor atoms such as sulphur, can selectively remove this pollutant, for the selective complexation of mercury from contaminated water, which was compared by conductimetry and liquid-liquid extraction studies with results that show that the derivative with the highest sulphur atoms is its structure which presents greater selectivity compared to the derivative with the lowest number of sulphur atoms, in both cases, they present very stable complexes.