Competitive adsorption of uranyl ions in the presence of Pb(II) and Cd(II) ions by poly(glycidyl methacrylate) microbeads carrying amidoxime groups and polarographic determination

The adsorption capacity of UO in the presence of Pb(II) and Cd(II) ions was investigated with amidoximated poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (PGMA) microbeads with an average size of 135 μm packed in a glass column (0.5‐cm i.d. and 20‐cm length, flow rate = 3 mL/min) under competitive conditions. A differential pulse polarography technique was used for the determination of trace quantities of uptaken elements by the measurement of the reduction peak currents at ?200/?950, ?400, and ?600 mV (vs a saturated calomel electrode) for UO, Pb(II), and Cd(II) ions, respectively. When only UO was found in the eluate, its adsorption was 85.3% from a 50 μM initial solution. However, when there was UO with binary systems of Pb(II) or Cd(II), it was 78.2 and 76.3%, respectively. On the other hand, in a ternary mixture of UO with Pb(II) and Cd(II), the adsorption was found to be 75.2% with the same initial concentration. According to the results, the competitive adsorption studies showed that these amidoximated PGMA microbeads had good adsorption selectivity for UO with the coexistence of Pb(II) and Cd(II) ions. The ionic strength of the solution also influenced the UO adsorption capacity of the amidoximated PGMA microbeads. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 104: 4168–4172, 2007