Adsorption of Rhodamine B and methyl orange on a hypercrosslinked polymeric adsorbent in aqueous solution

In the present study, a hypercrosslinked polymeric adsorbent functionalized with formaldehyde carbonyl groups, HJ-1 was prepared and its adsorption behaviors for two dyes, Rhodamine B (RB) and methyl orange (MO), were tested in aqueous solution. Batch adsorption results indicated that semi-empirical Freundlich isotherm described the adsorption isotherms better and kinetic studies demonstrated that the adsorption obeyed the pseudo-second-order rate model and both of film diffusion and intra-particle diffusion were the rate limiting steps. Adsorption thermodynamic parameters displayed that the adsorption was an exothermic, spontaneous, and more ordered arrangement process, and the polar functional groups of the adsorbent and the matching between the pore diameter of the adsorbent and the molecular size of the adsorbate are the two primary factors influencing the adsorption.