Development of amidoxime functionalized silica by radiation‐induced grafting

A novel amidoxime‐based silica adsorbent was prepared by using radiation‐induced grafting technique. Grafting of acrylonitrile (AN) on silanized silica that was silanized by vinyltriethoxysilane (VTES) was carried out in solvent‐free system. The grafting of AN was increased with increasing the absorbed dose and monomer concentration in the mixture. Grafting of 748% of AN was achieved at 20 kGy dose. The nitrile groups of acrylonitrile grafted silica (AN‐g‐S) were chemically converted into amidoxime groups. The structure of AN‐g‐S and its corresponding products was investigated by FTIR, SEM, TGA, BET, and XRD analysis. FTIR and EDX analysis confirmed the grafting of AN onto silica surface. The changed morphology of SEM images shows the presence polyacrylonitrile layers on silica particles. The adsorption application of amidoxime‐grafted silica (AO‐g‐S) was studied against Cu²⁺. Its adsorption capacity is strongly depended on the pH of the solution and 172 (mg/g) of Cu²⁺ uptake was obtained at pH 5.0. The developed adsorbent has potential application to remove heavy metal ions from aqueous solutions. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 45437.