Synthesis and characterizing a novel polymeric flocculant based on amylopectin-graft-polyacrylamide-graft-polyacrylic acid [(AP-g-PAM)-g-PAA]

The article highlights the development of a new generation of polymeric flocculant by grafting binary monomer mixture of acrylamide and acrylic acid onto a natural polymer—amylopectin (AP-g-PAM)-g-PAA]. Primary graft copolymerization of acrylamide onto AP and binary graft copolymerization of acrylic acid onto AP-g-PAM was accomplished in 84 and 91?% grafting efficiency (% GE) using potassium persulphate as initiator. The influence of initiator concentration onto % GE was investigated. The developed binary graft copolymer was characterized using various materials characterization techniques like viscometry, elemental analysis, FTIR spectroscopy, ¹³C NMR spectroscopy, molecular weight and radius of gyration by Zimm plot using SLS analysis. Flocculation studies reveal that the synthesized binary grafted product is an efficient flocculant, which is because of its higher molecular weight and radius of gyration.