Abstract
In the present study, the authors examined the heavy-metal-capturing properties of maleic acid/acrylamide (MA/AAm) gel which has plural carboxyl bases in a molecule. It was observed that the heavy-metal-capturing efficiency of the MA/AAm gel is very smaller than that of the sodium acrylate/acrylamide (SA/AAm) gel at the same AAm molar-fraction and total network density; in spite that the number of the carboxyl groups in the MA/AAm gel is twice as many as those of the corresponding SA/AAm gel. From the experimental results in the present study, it has been revealed that the heavy-metal-capturing functionality is influenced by the conditions other than the carboxyl-group number in the hydrogels.
