A novel polymeric adsorbent by a self-doped manner: synthesis, characterization, and adsorption performance to phenol from aqueous solution

The organic–inorganic self-doped poly (vinyltrimethoxy silane-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate) (VE resin) was synthesized by solution polymerization, hydrolysis and dehydration condensation. In this method, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) was used as cross-linked reagent to form a three-dimensional network structure. Then, the system was prepared by radical polymerization in the presence of the hydrolysis of –OCH 3 and the dehydration condensation of Si–OH. The maximum adsorption capacity 75.68 mg g −1 was achieved when pH was 6, the contact time 60 min, the adsorbent dose 0.1 g, the initial concentration 3000 mg L −1 and the temperature 293 K. The adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and the intra-particle diffusion was but not the only rate-limiting step. Adsorption isotherms of phenol were linearly correlated and found to be well represented by the Freundlich model. Thermodynamic parameters such as changes in the enthalpy (Δ H ), free energy (Δ G ) and entropy (Δ S ) indicated that the adsorption process of phenol on VE resin were physical and exothermic. After four regeneration recycles, the adsorption capacity of VE resin remained at 95.04 % of the initial value, which illustrated that it possessed good regeneration capacity.