Kinetics and mechanism of adsorptive removal of copper from aqueous solution with poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel

Recently, a renewed interest in techniques for heavy metal removal of wastewater has been growing because of embarking opportunities for industrial applications. We investigated the adsorption capacity of the copper on the poly (vinyl alcohol) hydrogel from the aqueous solution. Chemical structure and water absorption of the hydrogel were studied using FTIR and water uptake measurement, respectively. The results showed that the poly (vinyl alcohol) was crosslinked with glutaraldehyde, and the hydrogel highly exhibited the equilibrium swelling ratio because of its hydrophilicity property. Additionally, it was found that the adsorption process followed the pseudo-second-order kinetics and the mechanism diffusion was controlled by particle and film diffusions.