Mesoporous silica/polyacrylamide nanocomposite adsorbent was prepared by UV-graft polymerization.
Polyacrylamide was successfully grafted onto the silanized mesoporous silica.
The Hg(II) adsorption capacity of the nanocomposite was as high as 177 mg g−1 after 1 h at RT.
Adsorption process was found to fit pseudo second order kinetics and exothermic.