Poly(Methacrylic Acid) Gels as a Fluoride Absorbent: Effect of Synthetic Conditions

Now a day, fluoride contamination in ground water has been recognized as one of the contaminants for human consumption leading to various diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis,brittle bones, cancer, infertility, brain damage, Alzheimer syndrome and thyroid disorder [1]. Therefore, the necessity toremove the fluoride from water in an efficient way is great. Among various treatment methods, adsorption technique has been widely studied in recent years due to its costeffectiveness, simplicity of design and operation [2]. Recently, considerable interest has been generated in the development ofpolymeric adsorbents as a tool for removing fluoride from polluted systems [3]. In this work, the feasibility of poly(methacrylic acid) gels forremoving fluoride from aqueous fluoride solution was studied. In this relate, the synthetic conditions for preparation of gels,i.e., concentrations of monomer, crosslinker and initiator to achieve maximum fluoride absorbency were optimized through the Taguchi experimental design method. As well as,the combination of silver nanoparticles with prepared gel was considered as a promising route to design novel antibacterial fluoride adsorbent for water treatment applications