Abstract
The present work used montmorillonite (Na-MMT) beside chemical crosslinker to prepare amphiphilic nanogel to increase their adsorption rate to remove water pollutants. In this respect, several ionic and nonionic monomers such as acrylic acid (AA), acrylamide (AAm), N-isopropylacrylamide, 2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid (AMPS) and its sodium salt (AMPS-Na) are used to prepare homopolymer nanogels having different chemical structures. The chemical interactions between nanogels and Na-MMT and their chemical structure were confirmed by FTIR analysis. The intercalation and exfoliation of Na-MMT were confirmed by wide-angle X-ray diffraction. The morphology of Na-MMT nanogel composites was investigated by TEM analysis. he surface properties of the prepared nanogels were determined from water surface tension measurements of different concentrations of Na-MMT nanogels. The prepared Na-MMT nanogels were used to remove methylene blue dye, cobalt and nickel cations from water at different pH solutions. The data confirmed that the Na-MMT nanogels having ability to reduce the surface tension of water have strong ability to remove dye and metal ions from water.