Preparation and characterization of chelating fibers based on natural wool for removal of Hg(II), Cu(II) and Co(II) metal ions from aqueous solutions

The graft copolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) onto natural wool fibers initiated by KMnO4 and oxalic acid combined redox initiator system in limited aqueous medium was carried out in heterogeneous media. Moreover, modification of the grafted wool fibers was done by changing the nitrile group (-CN) into cyano-acetic acid α-amino-acrylic-hydrazide through the reaction with hydrazine hydrate followed by ethylcyanoacetate which eventually produce wool-grafted-poly(cyano-acetic acid α-amino-acrylic-hydrazide) (wool-g-PCAH) chelating fibers. The application of the modified fibers for metal ion uptake was studied using Hg2+, Cu2+ and Co2+. The modified chelating fibers were characterized using FTIR spectroscopy, SEM and X-ray diffraction.