The study of the removal of penconazole fungicide from surface water using carboxymethyl tragacanth-based hydrogel grafted with poly (acrylic acid-co-acrylamide)

In this study, a polymeric adsorbent based on carboxymethyl tragacanth (CMT) grafted by poly acrylic acid-co-acrylamide (AAc-co-AAm) synthesized by radical polymerization for the first time was used to remove the fungicide penconazole (PEN) or Topas 20% from surface water. The parameters of solution pH, adsorption isotherm, and adsorption kinetics of PEN were studied by the synthetic adsorbent. The surface morphology and functional groups of CMT-g-poly (AAc-co-AAm) were confirmed by XRD, SEM and FT-IR techniques. Adsorption of PEN on CMT-g-poly (AAc-co-AAm) follows the Freundlich and pseudo-second-order models. The significant maximum adsorption capacity of the synthesized polymer was found to be 196.08 mg/g. The synthetic adsorbent had good reproducibility in PEN removal for up to 5 cycles. CMT-g-poly (AAc-co-AAm) is a cost-effective and non-toxic adsorbent for the decontamination of surface water from pesticides.