Production new chelating fibers of polyacrilonitrile for removing metal ions

In this work, raw acrylic fibers (RAF) have been modified with ethanolamine to provide new chelating fibers and prepared polyacrylonitrile‐monoethanolamine (PAN‐MEA). PAN‐MEA fiber was prepared by conversion nitrile groups into hydroxyle groups using ethanolamine solution with different concentration under refluxing at different temperatures and different times. The fiber structure has been investigated by different experimental techniques of characterization such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the physical and mechanical properties has also been investigated in this study. The PAN‐MEA was examined as chelating material in a series of batch adsorption experiments for removal Cu (II), Pb (II) and Ni (II) ions. The ion adsorption of PAN‐MEA was determined with the atomic adsorption method. PAN‐MEA show adsorption metal ions more than usual fiber because of the modification.