Abstract
2,2¢-Dihydroxyazobenzene (DHAB) was attached to poly(ethylenimine) (PEI) to obtain DHAB-PEI. Spectral titration revealed that uranyl, Fe(III), Cu(II), and Zn(II) ion form 1 : 1-type complexes with DHAB attached to PEI. Formation constants for the metal complexes formed by the DHAB moieties of DHAB-PEI were mea-sured by using various competing ligands. The results indicated thatthe concentrations of uranyl, Fe(III), and Cu(II) ions can be reduced to 10 -16 -10 -23 M at p 8 with DHAB-PEI when the concentration of the DHAB moiety is 1 residue M. By using cyanuric chloride as the coupling reagent, DHAB-PEI was immobilized on Sephadex G-25 resin to obtain DHAB-PEI-Seph. Binding of uranyl,Fe(III), Cu(II), and Zn(II) ion by DHAB-PEI-Seph was characterized by using competing ligands. A new method has been developed for characteriza-tion of metal sequestering ability of a chelating resin. Formation constants and metal-binding capacity of two sets of binding sites on the resin were estimated for each metal ion. DHAB-PI-Seph was applied to recovery of metals such as uranium,Fe, Cu, Zn, Pb, V, Mn, and W from seawater. The uranium recovery from seawaterby DHAB-PEI-Seph does not meet the criterion for economical feasibility partlydue to interference by Fe and Zn ions. The seawater used in the experiment was contaminated by Fe and Zn and, therefore, the efficiency of uranium extractionfrom seawater with DHAB-PEI-Seph could be improved if the experiment is carried out in a cleaner sea.