Evaluation of hypercrosslinked waste polycarbonate for the removal of Lead ions from aqueous solutions

Polymeric materials make up a growing portion of urban and industrial waste that is going into landfills. Owing to the uncertainties inherent in the reuse of polymers, developing solutions for minimizing polymeric waste that are both environmentally appropriate and cost-effective has proved to be a difficult task. In this research, a polycarbonate-based hypercrosslinked polymer (HCP) adsorbent was synthesized using the knitting method by Friedel–Crafts reaction for Pb(II) ion removal. The synthesized polymer was characterized using SEM, EDS, BET, FTIR, TGA, XRD analyses. The findings showed that the synthesized HCP adsorbent could remove 98.23% of Pb (II) ions from wastewater. As for influencing factors, initial concentration, removal time, and temperature were investigated. The optimum values of initial concentration, removal time, and temperature were observed at 80 ppm, 44.48 min, and 26.03 °C, respectively. The adsorbent behavior was analyzed using isotherm and kinetic models. The result reveals that the adsorption process obeys Redlich-Peterson isotherm model, the adsorption has occurred spontaneously in the heat degree of 15–35 °C and exothermic. Moreover, the RSM model has been employed for optimizing the participant variables. According to RSM, the maximum and minimum values of adsorption capacity were 122.419 and 23.1166 mg/g, respectively, and the maximum and minimum values of adsorption percentage were 98.23 and 92.47%, respectively.