HDPE membranes grafted with amino group by 60Co γ-rays for adsorption of heavy metal ions

The effective treatment of heavy metals in the environment has been one of the major issues owing to their toxicity. Therefore, a study has been made on the preparation of grafted membranes having chelating group. To achieve such properties in the required membranes, a trial has been made on the radiation-induced graft copolymerization of glycidyl methacrylate onto high density polyethylene membranes and its subsequent amination with dimethylamine. The effect of preparation conditions such as irradiation dose, monomer concentration, reaction temperature and time on the grafting yield was investigated. Characterization of the prepared membrane as a function of the grafting yield using different analytical techniques were studied, such as FT-IR, DSC, AFM, accordingly the possibility of its practical use in waste-water treatment to remove some heavy metal ions such as Ni2+,Fe3+,Cr3+,Cd2+ and Mn2+ were investigated. The grafted membrane has good affinity or chelation toward these heavy metal ions from their wastes. These heavy metal ions chelated by the membranes were easily desorbed with 0.1mol/L HCl for 1h at room temperature. (authors)