Investigation of α‐iron oxide‐coated polymeric nanocomposites capacity for efficient heavy metal removal from aqueous solution

In the present study, PS@α‐Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposites were prepared by chemical microemulsion polymerization approach and the ability of magnetic beads to remove Cu(II) ions from aqueous solutions in a batch media was investigated. Various physico‐chemical parameters such as pH, initial metal ion concentration, temperature, and equilibrium contact time were also studied. Adsorption mechanism of Cu 2+ ions onto magnetic polymeric adsorbents has been investigated using Langmuir, Freundlich, Sips and Redlich–Petersen isotherms. The results demonstrated that the PS@α‐Fe 2 O 3 nanocomposite is an effective adsorbent for Cu 2+ ions removal. The Sips adsorption isotherm model ( R 2  > 0.99) was more in consistence with the adsorption isotherm data of Cu(II) ions compared to other models and the maximum adsorbed amount of copper was 34.25 mg/g. The adsorption kinetics well fitted to a pseudo second‐order kinetic model. The thermodynamic parameters (Δ H °, Δ S °, and Δ G °) were calculated from the temperature dependent sorption isotherms, and the results suggested that copper adsorption was a spontaneous and exothermic process. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:2735–2742, 2015. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers