Atom transfer radical polymerization with activators regenerated by electron transfer of acrylonitrile from silica nanoparticles,and adsorption properties of the resin for Hg2+ after amidoximation with hydroxylamine

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) was grafted from surfaces of chloro‐modified silica‐gel with their surface chlorines as initiation sites, using an iron (III)‐mediated surface‐initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) with activators regenerated by electron transfer (SI‐ARGET ATRP) method. The graft reaction exhibits first‐order kinetics with respect to the polymerization time in the low‐monomer‐conversion stage. The conversion of monomer (C%) and the percentage of grafting (PG%) increased with increasing of the polymerizing time and reached 23 and 730% after a polymerizing time of 24 hr, respectively. Hydroxylamine (NH₂OH·HCl) was used to modify the cyano groups of SG‐g‐PAN to obtain amidoxime (AO) groups. The AO SG‐g‐PAN was used to remove Hg²⁺. The adsorption kinetics indicated that the pseudo‐second‐order model was more suitable to describe the adsorption kinetics of AO SG‐g‐PAN for Hg²⁺. The adsorption isotherms demonstrated that Langmuir model was much better than Freundlich model to describe the isothermal process. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.