Synthesis and characterization of new polymers derived from 2-methyl-m-phenylenediamine as an effective adsorbent for cationic dye removal

Abstract The oxidative polymerizations of 2-methyl-m-phenylenediamine were performed to synthesize PMPDIA-A and PMPDIA-B polymers by H2O2 (35% aqueous solution) oxidant in acidcatalyzed ethanol and basic aqueous medium. Furthermore, PMPDIA-E polymer of 2-methyl-mphenylenediamine was enzymatically synthesized by HRP (horseradish peroxidase) enzyme and H2O2 (35% aqueous solution) in dioxane/0.1 M phosphate tampon solution (pH = 7) mixture. The structures of 2-methyl-m-phenylenediamine and polymers were confirmed by FT-IR, NMR and UV–Vis spectrometer measurements. Molecular weight distributions, surface morphologies, thermal and fluorescence properties of polymers were determined from GPC, SEM, TG-DTA, DSC and fluorescence spectra analyses, respectively. CV and UV–Vis analyses were performed to determine the HOMO–LUMO energy levels, electrochemical (E0 g) and optical (Eg) band gaps values of MPDIA, PMPDIA-E, PMPDIA-A and PMPDIA-B. The electrochemical and optical band gaps values of polymers were lower than MPDIA, because of their polyconjugated structures. According to GPC measurements of polymers, the weight average molecular weights were between 5400 and 10400 Da. The fluorescence quantum yield of PMPDIA-E was calculated to be 9.15% in DMSO solution. The adsorption of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution on PMPDIA-B was studied. Adsorption isotherms and equilibrium adsorption capacities were determined by the fitting of the experimental data to two well-known isotherm models: Langmuir and Freundlich. 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).