Selective mercury uptake by polymer supported hydroxyethyl sulfonamides

Hydroxyethyl sulfonamide function supported on styrene-divinyl benzene (9% mol/mol) bead resin is presented as mercury selective reagent. The resin product with 3.49 mmol g −1 of 2-hydroxyethyl sulfonamide content removes reasonable quantities of mercuric ions (0.83–1.64 mmol g −1) from aqueous solutions of HgCl 2, Hg (CH 3COO) 2 and Hg (NO 3) 2, in non-buffered conditions. Experiments showed that, the resin is able to extract mercury selectively, in the presence of foreign ions such as Zn(II), Cd(II), Fe(III), and Pb(II). Only negligible amount of sorption was detected for the case of Fe(III) (0.31 mmol g −1). The loaded resin can be regenerated by HCl solution (2 M) and mercuric ions can be recovered (99% in the first contact) without any hydrolysis. Having advantage of hydrolytic stability of the sulfonamide linkage, the resin presented shows no loss in the capacity after 20 sorption–desorption cycle.