Fabrication of Cobalt tagged smart ion-imprinted polymeric material applied for the elimination of Co²⁺ ions from real environmental samples

This work highlights a new facile method for preparing Cobalt (Co²⁺) Imprinted Polymer, Prepared by the co-precipitation process. 4-vinyl pyridine (4VP) used as a complexing material 2-(Hydroxyethyl) methacrylate (2HEMA) used as a functional monomer. The Co²⁺ tagged imprinted polymer was crosslinked by the ethylene glycol methacrylate. Simultaneously, the non-imprinted polymer was synthesized as a controlled sample. The effects of pH, agitation time, and sample volume were checked. The adsorption isotherm data have shown that the Langmuir isotherm model is well fit toward the equilibrium adsorption, while the Pseudo-second-order describes the kinetic adsorption behavior of the polymeric material. 2HEMA and 4VP based imprinted polymeric material has an excellent affinity towards the Co²⁺ ions over the different coexisting ions. The proposed method obtained 243.9 mg g⁻¹ at pH 6. At the linear range from 10 to 100 μg L⁻¹. Good linearity was attained with limit of detection and limit of quantification 0.59 µg L⁻¹ and 1.97 µg L⁻¹. The proposed method was validated by the standard addition process and achieved excellent results in accordance with spiking values in real aqueous samples. The proposed method has excellent adsorption capacity towards the analyte with short agitation time compared to the reported methods. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]