Abstract

The present work reports the synthesis of Amino acid functionalized hydrogel networks (AFHs). N-acryloyl-L-
phenylalanine and N’-isopropylacrylamide and were crosslinked by N,N-methylene-bis-acrylamide using redox
polymerization technique. The diffusion parameters were calculated by swelling kinetics to understand the
diffusion mechanism. Equilibrium swelling experiments have been performed on the AFHs in metal ion
solutions. The effect of relevant parameters, such as contact time, initial pH, and initial metal ion
concentration were investigated to determine the optimum sorption conditions. Adsorption equilibrium data
were better fitted by a Langmuir isotherm. The adsorption capacity of Eu3+ on the AFHs was 0.89 mM/g.
Desorption studies were also performed in acid media and EDTA, to observe whether the gels can be utilized as
reusable tool for the metal ion removal. Metal ion sorption studies shows that AFHs can be used for removal of
Eu3+ ions from aqueous solutions. Adsorption data were modeled using the pseudo-second-order. The
experimental data were fitted well the pseudo-second-order kinetics.