Removal of cadmium which is a human carcinogen using a novel cryogelic pellets

Removal of wastes from aqueous media has an increasing importance as a result of rapid development of industry causing pollution of water sources. The usage of cadmium in industry; batteries, tin soldering, veneering and also in production of cars, plastic and etc. causes the presence of cadmium in water sources. Cd2+ is a toxic element that may cause pathologies like renal tubular disfunction, kidney damage, pulmoner emphysema, osteoporosis and also may compete with trace elements like Zn2+. Beause of this toxic properties cadmium must be removed from wastes of these industries. Conventional methods using removal of heavy metals from industrial wastes are expensive and inefficient. As a new developed method, adsorption, is economic and simple method for removal of heavy metals. In this study, cryogelic matrix poly(HEMA) was synthesized from 2-hydroxyethylmetacrylate monomer at -120C for 24 hours by free radical polimerization to remove toxic Cd2+ ions. Congo Red (CR) and Cibacron Blue F3GA (CB) was immobilized on cryogel membranes as ligands. Characterization of the polymeric structures was carried out with FTIR, SEM and elemental analysis. Effects of some system parameters such as pH, initial concentration, temperature and contact time were investigated for the optimization of adsorption conditions on CR and CB immobilized cryogelic pellets. The maximum adsorption capacities are determined as 28,534 mg/g for poly(HEMA)-CR and as 25,492 mg/g for poly(HEMA)-CB. We also determined that poly(HEMA)-CR and poly(HEMA)-CB cryogelic pellets can be used for the removal of Cd2+ ions from human plasma.