Synthesis of novel inorganic–organic hybrid materials for simultaneous adsorption of metal ions and organic molecules in aqueous solution

► Novel hybrid materials were synthesized and employed in the absorption of heavy metal and organic pollutants. ► A novel method for amphiphilic adsorbent material synthesis was first reported in this paper. ► The adsorbent material showed excellent adsorption capacity to Pb(II) and phenol. In this paper, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and radical grafting polymerization were combined to synthesize a novel amphiphilic hybrid material, meanwhile, the amphiphilic hybrid material was employed in the absorption of heavy metal and organic pollutants. After the formation of attapulgite (ATP) ATRP initiator, ATRP block copolymers of styrene (St) and divinylbenzene (DVB) were grafted from it as ATP-P(S- b-DVB). Then radical polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) was carried out with pendent double bonds in the DVD units successfully, finally we got the inorganic–organic hybrid materials ATP-P(S- b-DVB-g-AN). A novel amphiphilic hybrid material ATP-P(S- b-DVB- g-AO) (ASDO) was obtained after transforming acrylonitrile (AN) units into acrylamide oxime (AO) as hydrophilic segment. The adsorption capacity of ASDO for Pb(II) could achieve 131.6 mg/g, and the maximum removal capacity of ASDO towards phenol was found to be 18.18 mg/g in the case of monolayer adsorption at 30 °C. The optimum pH was 5 for both lead and phenol adsorption. The adsorption kinetic suited pseudo-second-order equation and the equilibrium fitted the Freundlich model very well under optimal conditions. At the same time FT-IR, TEM and TGA were also used to study its structure and property.