Heavy-metal contamination in water, such as lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), and chromium (Cr) from mining, manufacturing, and disposal, poses serious hazards to human health.1 Chitosan (CS), the deacetylated product of chitin, exhibits a high adsorption capacity toward metals because of its multiple functional groups, biocompatibility, and biodegradability.2 Ion-imprinting polymers, which are derived from molecular ion-imprinting technology, are very promising materials for the adsorption of metal ions in dilute solutions. Such materials generally present both high adsorption capacity and selectivity toward the template molecules. The enhanced performance is due to the specific cavities created in the polymer matrix by imprinted molecules (ions).3In this work, a new Pb(II)-ion imprinted polymer (Pb(II)-IIPs) based on chitosan was synthesized and applied for the selective extraction and preconcentration of Pb(II) ions from aqueous solution. Chitosan and vinyl pyridine as a chelating ligand, methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) as a crosslinking agent and ammonium peroxydisulfate (APS) as an initiator was used. The resulted product, (vinyl pyridinechitosan/Pb(II)) was characterized successfully. After removing the template Pb(II) ions from polymeric networks, the Pb(II)-IIPs have been achieved
