Fabrication of nickel-tagged magnetic imprinted polymeric network for the selective extraction of Ni(II) from the real aqueous samples

A new nickel ion, magnetic imprinted polymer was fabricated through the precipitation polymerization process, using amine-functionalized silica-capped iron oxide particles as a core material, and 4-vinyl pyridine as complexing agent methacrylic acid as functional monomer. The resulted magnetic adsorbent was employed to eliminate toxic Ni²⁺ ions from industrial wastewater. The different parameters were optimized, such as pH, shaking speed, and adsorbent dose, to obtain the maximum adsorption capacity. The synthesized material showed high selectivity coefficient for Ni⁺² ions in the presence of other competitive ions and followed pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir isotherm. A good adsorption capacity of 158.73 mg g⁻¹ was obtained at optimized pH 6 in the concentration of 5 mg L⁻¹ nickel ions aqueous solution. The limit of detection, quantification, and the percent relative standard deviation was found to be 0.58, 1.93, and 3.4%. This proves the excellent performance of prepared magnetic Ni(II) ion-imprinted polymer for selective detoxification of Ni²⁺ ions from real aqueous samples. Due to tunable magnetic properties, the prepared MMIPs are highly selective and sensitive and highly porous in nature; due to excellent magnetic properties, there is no need for centrifugation. Just use external magnetic field, it has good reusability. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]