The result showed that by increasing the concentration of copper
ions, the intensity of the peaks increased indicating the increase in the
number of copper nanoparticles. Moreover, the position of the peaks
shifted towards shorterλ, indicating the decrease of the nanoparticles
size. By increasing the concentration of copper ions higher than
0.6mmol thepeak shapewasdistorted, probablydue to theaggregation
of nanoparticles. Therefore, 0.6 mmol was used as optimum value in the
further experiments. Loading concentration of copper in the nanocom-posite (mg/g) was determined using atomic absorption spectroscopy
(AAS). The experiment was carried out with 0.2 g of hydrogel and
0.6 mmol of copper ions. After 12 h hydrogel loaded with copper ions
was separated by directfiltration and thefinal copper ion concentra-tions in the solution was measured by AAS. At the optimized condition
loading concentration was determined as 26 ± 1 mg/g.