Abstract: Within this work, a novel Hg(II) ion-imprinted resin based on thiourea modified melamine had been manufactured for selective elimination of Hg2+ from aqueous solutions. The polymerizable thiourea-melamine (H3MT) ligand together with its Hg(II) complex were extensively investigated using elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in addition to Nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR) spectra. The Hg(II) complex were then implemented in a condensation polymerization in presence of formaldehyde crosslinker then the Hg(II) ions were leached out from the cross-linked polymeric network to finally produce the ion-imprinted Hg-PMTF resin. Both ion-imprinted Hg-PMTF and non-imprinted NI-PMTF resins were examined utilizing scanning electron microscope (SEM) and FTIR. The potential of the prepared resin for selective separation of Hg(II) ions from aqueous solutions were then evaluated by performing a series of batch experiments. Hg-PMTF displayed an obvious rapid removal of the Hg(II) ions with pseudo-second-order kinetic pattern. In addition, Langmuir adsorption isotherm model exhibited the best fit with the experimental data with comparatively high maximum adsorption capacity (360.5 mg/g)
Author keywords: Ion-imprinting, Melamine, Thiourea, Mercuric ion