Effective Removing of Remazol Black B by the Polyacrylamide Cryogels Modified with Polyethyleneimine

In this study, modified polyacrylamide (PAAm) cryogels with high dye holding capacity were synthesized with an easily and cheaply process and adsorption of Remazol Black B (RBB) with the synthesized materials was investigated. Firstly, PAAm cryogels were synthesized with free radical cryo-copolymerization method and they were modified with Hofmann reaction to form amine groups in the structure of the cyrogels. Then, to increase the removal efficiency of cryogels, polyethylenimine (PEI) molecules were crosslinked onto the cryogels via NH₂ groups present in the PAAm gels modified by the Hofmann reaction. The original and modified cryogels were characterized with fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The point of zero charge (pH_pzc) of the modified cryogels was found to be 7.13 and RBB removing capabilities of PEI-modified PAAm cryogels were investigated at pH between 2 and 7. In addition, the adsorption treatments were performed at different process time, incubation temperature, initial dye concentration and adsorbent amount to find maximum removal capacity of the adsorbent. The modified cryogels adsorbed maximum amount of RBB at pH 2 and the sorption process reached equilibrium in 6 h. It was observed that the adsorption efficiency did not change much with the increase in temperature. The maximum RBB removal capacity of the modified cyrogels was determined to be 201 mg/g when the initial RBB concentration was 200 mg/L, treatment time was 6 h at pH 2. Moreover, the adsorption of RBB dye with the modified cryogels takes place with a second order kinetic and RBB dye adsorption data showed compliance with the Langmuir isotherm. The findings of the study expose that the obtained PEI-modified PAAm cryogels are a hopeful material for RBB removal in aqueous environment.