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This article presents a novel material of acrylamide (AM) cross‐linked psyllium polysaccharides (PLP) derivative, PLP‐AM, which can be used as an effective polymeric flocculant for the removal of microplastics (MP) from water. PLP‐AM was produced by radical polymerization of PLP and AM using microwave irradiation instead of conventional radical initiators. The characterization of PLP‐AM was carried out by FT‐IR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, intrinsic viscosity measurement and thermogravimetric analysis (TG). Polystyrene (PS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) were utilized to examine the flocculation performance of PLP‐AM. The optimum flocculation conditions were obtained by the comprehensive exploration of flocculant concentration, solution pH and temperature. In a solution with a pH 6 at 30 °C, the maximum removal percentages of PS and PVC by 60 mg/L of PLP‐AM were 92.55 % and 94.31 %, respectively, while 93.85 % of the maximum removal of PET percentage could be obtained by 80 mg/L of PLP‐AM. The results of zeta potential measurement revealed that there was adsorption electric neutralization between MP and PLP‐AM besides the adsorption bridging mechanism. These results suggest that PLP‐AM may bring an inspiration for the development of polymer flocculant to remove MP from water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heavy metal ions in water can affect human health. Taking Pb2+ for an example, it can lead to kidney failure and tumor infection. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has been widely used as filter membranes in wastewater treatment. This paper uses citric acid (CA) as the connecting arm to graft carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS) onto PVDF and prepare a novel granular molecular sieve‐supported PVDF derivative (s‐PVDF‐CA‐CMCS). The structure was characterized and the adsorption capacity for heavy metal ions was investigated. The results indicate that s‐PVDF‐CA‐CMCS has good adsorption performance for aqueous heavy metal ions, especially for Pb2+, with a removal rate of 99.39 % and an adsorption capacity of 198.41 μg/g. The adsorption data fits the pseudo‐second‐order kinetic model (R2=0.9992), and the removal rate of Pb2+ was 78.48 % after 5 cycles of adsorptions, indicating that s‐PVDF‐CA‐CMCS may be potential applications for removing heavy metal ions in water treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]