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Functionalized polypropylene (PP) fibers were prepared by radiation-induced graft copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) and 4-vinyl pyridine (4VP) binary system onto the PP fibers. Preparation conditions such as type of solvent used, comonomer composition and total concentration were investigated to obtain a suitable grafting degree for the proposed application as a metal recovery polymer. The effect of pH on the chelation of individual metal ions was investigated to estimate the optimum pH value for each metal at which maximum chelation takes place. It was found that the sorption capacity of the functionalized fiber was 247.3, 221.3, 202.1, 161.5, 135.4, 128.89, 122.06 and 104.1 mg/g for Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn, Sr and At, respectively. Regeneration test shows that the prepared fibers kept their capacity unchanged up to, at least, 10 cycles. The prepared functionalized PP fibers were used to treat some groundwater samples containing high concentrations of iron and manganese collected from El Dakhla Oasis, which is located at Western desert of Egypt. The obtained results show that the prepared fibers acquire a promising potential in improving the quality of water resources. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier B.V.