Investigation of uranium (VI) adsorption by polypyrrole

The purpose of this study was to investigate the adsorption of uranium (VI) ions on the polypyrrole adsorbent. Polypyrrole was synthesized by a chemical method using polyethylene glycol, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate, and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as the surfactant and iron (III) chloride as an oxidant in the aqueous solution. The effect of various surfactants on the synthesized polymers and their performance as the uranium adsorbent were investigated. Adsorbent properties were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) techniques. The effect of different parameters such as pH, contact time, initial metal ion concentrations, adsorbent dose, and the temperature was investigated in the batch system for uranium adsorption process. It has been illustrated that the adsorption equilibrium time is 7 min. The results showed that the Freundlich model had the best agreement and the maximum adsorption capacity of polypyrrole for uranium (VI) was determined 87.72 mg/g from Langmuir isotherm. In addition, the mentioned adsorption process was fast and the kinetic data were fitted to the Pseudo first and second order models. The adsorption kinetic data followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Moreover, the thermodynamic parameters ΔG0, ΔH0 and ΔS0 showed that the uranium adsorption process by polypyrrole was endothermic and spontaneous.