Immobilization of lariat ether carboxylic acids on polystyrene

The research presented in thesis has three objectives. The first objective was to obtain a synthetic route which would allow the linkage of proton-ionizable crown ethers to commercially available, flinctionalized polystyrene. The proton-ionizable crown ethers used in this research could not be directly attached to chloromethylated polystyrene. Therefore an appropriate intermediate had to be incorporated prior to crown ether attachment.

The second objective was to determine the characteristics of the base resin which allow the greatest degree of alkali metal cation binding. Structural characteristics of the base resin include the degree of crosslinking and extent of chloromethylation. These two factors could play a very significant role in the metal cation sorption ability of the various crown ether-coupled polystyrene resins.

The final objective was to determine if the polymer bound proton-ionizable crown ethers maintained the metal ion binding abilities of the corresponding non-polymeric proton-ionizable crown ethers.