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Functional Group-Modified Polymers: Property Investigation and Applications

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Polymer Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 244

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per la Microelettronica e Microsistemi (CNR-IMM), Ottava Strada n.5, 95121 Catania, Italy
Interests: water; polymer; photocatalysis; energy; carbon nanomaterial

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue covers the synthesis, characterization, and application of functionalized polymers and nanocomposites for environment protection, energy conversion, and sensors. In these fields, polymers are dominant due to their satisfying performance, cost-effectiveness, controllable membrane structures, properties, and scalable production capacity. To further ameliorate their performance in terms of selectivity, stability, reactivity, and transport, their functionalization with nanoparticles and/or functional groups such as sulfonic, carboxyl, and quaternary ammonium represents a new winning strategy. 

Dr. Simona Filice
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • polymer
  • photocatalysis
  • sulfonation
  • water purification
  • coating
  • energy
  • antibacterial
  • antibiofouling
  • sensors
  • transport

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

24 pages, 1484 KiB  
Article
Kinetic and Isotherm Studies of Organic and Inorganic Anions Adsorption from Water by Quaternized Pentablock Copolymeric Film (PTBr)
by Simona Crispi, Simona Filice, Viviana Scuderi, Massimo Zimbone, Daniela Iannazzo, Consuelo Celesti and Silvia Scalese
Polymers 2025, 17(12), 1624; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym17121624 - 11 Jun 2025
Abstract
Nowadays, nitrate ions and azo dyes are a significant source of water pollution due to their high toxicity, persistence, and potential to be carcinogenic. Both contaminants are the result of anthropogenic sources, such as sewage or industrial wastewater discharge; the first one results [...] Read more.
Nowadays, nitrate ions and azo dyes are a significant source of water pollution due to their high toxicity, persistence, and potential to be carcinogenic. Both contaminants are the result of anthropogenic sources, such as sewage or industrial wastewater discharge; the first one results also as a consequence of the intensive use of fertilizers. In this work we report the use of a new quaternized pentablock copolymer (PTBr) for the removal of nitrate ions and methyl orange (MO) dye from water by adsorption processes. Morphological, chemical, and thermal properties of the pentablock copolymer were investigated, respectively, by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Attenuated Total Reflectance Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) (FT-IR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses. Anionic removal ability and adsorption rate in water solutions containing either a single contaminant species or a mix of the two contaminants were studied by UV–VIS absorbance spectroscopy as a function of time and initial concentration. The presence of imidazole groups confers on PTBr a positive charge and a hydrophilic character that are responsible for an effective removal of anions from water. PTBr film reports an adsorption efficiency of 10.15 mg/g for nitrate removal and this value is in line with others reported in the literature. In the case of the simultaneous presence of nitrate and MO, it is found that nitrate ions removal is slightly affected by the presence of the dye, since both contaminants compete for electrostatic interaction with imidazole groups. On the contrary, the dye removal does not show significant change with or without the presence of nitrate ions, probably due to other kinds of interaction that it can establish with the polymer surface (π-π interaction). The adsorption process and the related mechanisms are described using kinetic and isothermal models. Despite a certain reduction in the adsorption efficiency for one of the investigated contaminants, the results confirm the possibility of using the quaternized pentablock copolymer for the co-adsorption of both inorganic and organic anions. Full article
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