Foamed urea-formaldehyde microspheres for removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions

A simple foaming method was applied to fabricate urea formaldehyde (UF) microspheres with cross-linked porous structures for environmental remediation of heavy metals. The specific surface area and average pore radius of the resultant foamed UF microspheres were 11-29 m²/g and 11-25 nm, respectively, which increased with the increasing molar ratio of formaldehyde to urea. All the foamed UF microspheres showed good removal of heavy metals ions (Pb(II), Cu(II), and Cd(II)) in both single- and mixed-metal solutions. Further investigations of Pb(II) adsorption on a selected UF microspheres showed fast kinetics and relatively high adsorption capacity (21.5 mg/g), which can be attributed to the mesoporous structure and abundance of oxygen surface functional groups of the microspheres. Both experimental and model results showed that chelation or complexation interactions between Pb(II) and the surface functional groups were responsible to the strong adsorption of the heavy metal ions on the microspheres. Hydrochloric acid (0.05 M) successfully desorbed Pb(II) from the post-adsorption microspheres for multiple times and the regenerated microspheres showed high Pb(II) removal rates (>96%) in five adsorption-desorption cycles. With many promising advantages, foamed UF microspheres show great potential as a wastewater treatment agent for heavy metal removal.