Water-soluble polymers are attractive materials for pollutants removal thanks to their ability to easily interact with soluble metal cations. In the present contribution, the chemical modification of biocompatible and non-toxic poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was achieved with ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) groups, thus leading to new water-soluble polymers, named PVA(EDTA). Modification was carried out using Mitsunobu's reaction as an original pathway to obtain statistical copolymers with different EDTA functionalization rates in the PVA chains. Preliminary study about the variation of EDTA rate and chain length permitted determining the optimal polymeric structures. Then, sorption properties of heavy metal (i.e. Co(II), Ni(II), Zn(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), Cu(II)) on structures containing 15% of chelating agent were determined by performing thorough adsorption isotherms or determining removal percentage, at a high or low concentration, respectively. Additionally, the performances of the polymers were tested in a more complex effluent constituted by previous pollutants in the presence of Ca(II) and Mn(II) cations. We demonstrated that water-soluble PVA(EDTA) led to a great improvement of sorption properties in comparison with PVA. Indeed, results obtained showed high sorption capacities for Pb(II), Ni(II), Zn(II), and good selectivity towards some cations, in consistency with EDTA-metal complex formation constants. Isotherm Titration Calorimetry measurements allowed evidencing the complexation stoichiometry, and determining the interaction constant and the enthalpy. This study highlighted the interest of modifying basic commercial polymers with chelating agents for further applications based on Polymer Enhanced Ultrafiltration (PEUF) process.

水溶性聚合物具有很容易与可溶性金属阳离子相互作用的能力，因此是去除污染物的诱人材料。在目前的贡献中，使用乙二胺四乙酸（EDTA）基团实现了对生物相容性和无毒的聚乙烯醇（PVA）的化学修饰，从而产生了新的水溶性聚合物，称为PVA（EDTA）。使用Mitsunobu反应作为原始途径进行修饰，以获得在PVA链中具有不同EDTA功能化速率的统计共聚物。EDTA速率和链长变化的初步研究可以确定最佳的聚合物结构。然后，重金属的吸附特性（即通过进行彻底的吸附等温线或确定去除率来确定含有15％螯合剂的结构上的Co（II），Ni（II），Zn（II），Pb（II），Cd（II），Cu（II）。分别处于高浓度或低浓度。另外，在由Ca（II）和Mn（II）阳离子存在的情况下，由先前污染物构成的更复杂的流出物中测试了聚合物的性能。我们证明，与PVA相比，水溶性PVA（EDTA）导致吸附性能大大提高。实际上，所获得的结果显示出对Pb（II），Ni（II），Zn（II）的高吸附能力，以及对某些阳离子的良好选择性，与EDTA-金属络合物的形成常数一致。等温滴定量热法测量可以证明络合化学计量，并确定相互作用常数和焓。这项研究强调了用螯合剂改性基础商业聚合物的兴趣，以用于基于聚合物增强超滤（PEUF）工艺的进一步应用。