Preparation of Ion-exchange Polymeric Nanofiber and Its Application for Separation and Concentration of Methyl phosphonic Acid

Ion exchange materials are widely used in various industries. The most application of ion exchange are water deionization or softening, metal recovery, biological process, food and beverages, pharmaceutical, and fuel cell [1]. Conventional ion exchange resins are normally either a gel-structure or granular material. Granular macroporous resins have pores that can take up to 10-30% of polymer. This large pore volume reduces the ion exchange capacity proportionately. More recently fibers have been used for ion exchange and have the advantage of simplification of the preparation, fabrication, contact efficiency and physical requirements of strength and dimensional stability [2]. Alkyl-substituted organophosphorous acids are the primary hydrolysis products of biologically-active organophorus compound such as nerve agent and pesticides. The nerve agents sarin, soman and VX when exposed to the environment they are rapidly degraded to the corresponding alkyl methylphosphonic acids and, finally, to methylphoshonic acid (MPA). Interest in the ultratrace-level detection of the alkylphosphonic acids has increased sharply in the last few years in response to monitoring efforts needed for anti-terrorist activities and to those defind by the chemical weapons. State of-the-art analytical procedures were employed to demonstrate the deployment of chemical agents during the Iraq-Iran conflict [3]. We developed a method of directly extraction MPA from groundwater with a novel micro-extraction nanofiber as a solid-phase extraction sorbent.