New thin solid membrane for selective extraction of Cu(II) from aqueous media

Many Liquid membranes were evaluated for the selective extraction of cesium cation. Nevertheless, their chemical instability over time and the low flux diffusion present major drawbacks for their use in practical industrial applications. In this study, we introduce a solid membrane (PAN/Sty-Met(Py-Tet)) that uses a tetrapodal tetrazole-pyrazole conjugate molecule as transporter. This solid membrane was created by photopolymerizing a formulation of tetrazole-pyrazole conjugate monomer on a polyacrylonitrile support, resulting in an asymmetric and amorphous structure. TGA analysis reveals that the solid membrane (PAN/Sty-Met(Py-Tet)) possesses a thermal stability until 330 °C. The transport results show that the resulting membrane transports Cu 2+ over Zn 2+ , Pb 2+ , Co 2+ , and Cd 2+ cations in the competitive conditions. the Cu 2+ flux achieved 34.5 × 10 − 3 mol/h×m 2 at room temperature under neutral pH. Its performances were also found stable over 8 cycles. The present membrane could be considered as potential candidate for the selective isolation of the Cu 2+ in aqueous media at room temperature.