Synthesis, Characterization and Application of Polyaniline for Nickel Ions Removal.

Cheng, Hsze Yuan (2019) Synthesis, Characterization and Application of Polyaniline for Nickel Ions Removal. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Nickel (Ni) metal was commonly used as raw materials for stainless steel and other nickel alloys production or used as catalyst in several industries such as electroplating industry and mining industry. Rapid globalization and industrialization caused the heavy metal pollution including Ni pollution became more serious. There are some conventional methods used to remove Ni2+ ions from aqueous environment such as chemical precipitation, electrochemical treatment, ion exchange, membrane filtration and biological method. Although these methods were commonly used but it possessed some disadvantages. Therefore, polyaniline (PAni) nanocomposites were synthesized to utilize as adsorbent to remove Ni2+ ions by adsorption method. PAni nanocomposites were synthesized by template-free method by using aniline (Ani) as monomer, hexanoic acid (HA) as dopant and ammonium persulfate (APS) as oxidizing agent with different filler such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) and helical multi-walled carbon nanotubes (h-MWNT). All the PAni nanocomposites synthesized have been characterized by using FTIR, UV-Vis, resistivity meter and TGA. PAni nanocomposites showed electrical conductivity in the range of 0.0859-2.4363×10-1 Scm-1. Among all the synthesized PAni nanocomposites, PAni/HA/TiO2/h-MWNT showed highest removal efficiency of 51.74% in Ni2+ ions removal with optimum dosage of 0.01 g and contact time of 24 hours in 30 mL of 12 ppm Ni solution. Besides, water, rain water and drain water were utilized as real sample solution in real sample analysis. The presence of interfering species in real sample matrices reduced the Ni2+ ions removal efficiency to 13.74-26.64%. The mechanism between PAni and Ni2+ ions was determined by UV-Vis analysis and FTIR analysis. UV-Vis analysis showed there was interaction between PAni and Ni2+ ions and FTIR analysis confirmed that nature of interaction was chemical interaction.