Water pollution has been a significant challenge for the environment and human health. Dyes in water resources cause severe water pollution and block sunlight penetration through water, which impairs photosynthesis of aquatic plants as well as causes a significant alteration in ecological conditions of aquatic life. Dye-contaminated water sources can pose serious public health concerns, including toxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity among other adverse health effects. Therefore, it is imperative to develop efficient methods to remove dye contaminants from water sources. Synthetic polymers, due to their versatile chemical structure, size, and shape, could provide a tunable platform to remove dyes from contaminated sources. Herein, we report a polymer-mediated removal of textile dyes from aqueous solutions. A nitrogen-rich polymer, polycarbodiimide, efficiently removed anionic dyes from a dye-contaminated acidic solution. Upon dye removal, the polymer was regenerated through modulation of the solution pH. Further investigations showed that the polymer’s ability to remove dyes was dependent on solution pH and the topological polar surface area of the dyes. Thus, the molecular mechanism for polymer–dye interactions could be attributed to a combined ionic and hydrophobic interaction. The effects of pH, ionic strength, dye concentration, and composition were also investigated. Removal of dyes from contaminated aqueous resources is important in reducing environmental pollutants and mitigating environmental and health impacts. The findings from this study provide insights into the development of polymeric materials to remove soluble dyes from contaminated water to foster environmental and water sustainability.
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