Selective Preconcentration of Fe 3+ Using Ion-Imprinted Thermosensitive Particles

Molecular imprinting is a form of template polymerization which has been used to produce artificial binding sites in porous polymer particles that exhibit selective rebinding of the imprint or template molecules used in the fabrication. In this study, thermosensitive ion- imprinted polymers TIIP were prepared for selective preconcentration of Fe3+ ions. Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models for TIIP were applied to describe the experimental isotherm and isotherm constants. Equilibrium data fit very well to the Langmuir model in the entire concentration range 5-40 mg/L . Furthermore, the selective adsorption of Fe3+ ions was confirmed by comparing the adsorption amount of other metal ions, Al3+, Zn2+, Co2+, Cu2+ and Mn2+.