The removal of heavy metal cations from an aqueous solution using ionic liquids

Abstract

The performance of new water immiscible halogen-free ionic liquids, which were synthesized from the corresponding trialkylamine, was evaluated by comparing it to that of a highly efficient commercial ionic liquid as extracting agent of heavy metal cations. In order to determine the amount of metal cations present in the aqueous phase, after performing the extraction process, the atomic absorption technique was used. The removal of metal cations, such as nickel, copper, lead, zinc, and cobalt, from the aqueous solution with an initial concentration of 25ppm performed by the synthesized ionic liquids at room temperature and neutral pH was highly efficient: for Ni (II), the efficiency was up to 96.00%; for Pb (II), it ranged from 93.00 to 99.00%; and for Cu (II), it almost reached 100%.