This study focuses on preparation of new adsorbent for copper by radiation induced grafting (RIG) of 2,3-epoxypropyl methacrylate (EMPA) onto PP/PE non-woven fabric (NWF) with subsequent functionalization with phosphoric acid (PA). The density of phosphoric acid incorporated onto EMPA-g-NWF was tuned by reaction parameters optimization such as PA concentration, reaction temperature, reaction time and EMPA grafting yield by using response surface method (RSM) engaging Box-Behnken design (BBD). Maximum PA density of 2.0 mmol/g−1 was estimated at optimum reaction parameter of 45.50% PA concentration, 70 °C reaction temperature, 2.76 h reaction time and 132.68% grafting yield. The deviation between optimum experimental and projected phosphoric acid density was taken into consideration, in order to verify the consistency of RSM in predicting the yield and optimizing the functionalization reaction parameters. The PA-functionalized EMPA-g-NWF was assessed with X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric (TGA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive x-ray (SEM-EDX) to examine the crystallinity, chemical composition, thermal stability and morphology, and respectively. The preliminary study on adsorption of copper was carried out with PA-functionalized EMPA-g-NWF at different conditions such as different initial copper concentration, PA density and contact time. The maximum adsorption was obtained at pH of 4. The adsorption capacity increases as the PA density increases and maximum adsorption obtained at 2.5 mmol/g-ad of PA density. The adsorption results obtained was very promising and suggested PA-functionalized EMPA-g-NWF as a suitable candidate for copper removal.
