Adsorption of Copper (II) by Chitosan Immobilized on Sand

Abstract

Because of the dramatic develop of industry, heavy metal pollution has become a global environmental considerations. The heavy metals in the soil and groundwater have endangered our environment and human body by direct or indirect pathway. Thus, how to solve efficiently the heavy metal pollution in groundwater has become the most essential issue around the world. Theoretically, the traditional remediation method is physicalchemical processes, which resulted in high capital cost and serious damage in contaminated sites. Currently, bioremediation is a developing biologic process that offers the possibility to destroy or render harmless various contaminants using natural biological activity. As such, it uses relatively low-cost, low-technology techniques, which generally have a high public acceptance and can often be carried out on site. Biopolymer is a biodegradable material, and becomes a newly developing tendency for many industries. Those materials can be degraded by landfill process, which provides the nutrient for microorganisms, plants and animals. Based on this concept, obtaining form insects, the shell of aquatic crustaceans (crab and shrimp), and the cell wall of fungus. Chitin and Chitosan have widely applied in the adsorption study of heavy metal based on their chemical structures, reaction characteristics and modification properties. This research is based on the ideal of green design and using biodegradable material (chitosan) coated with sand. Nature materials such as sand, soil, clay and chitosan used as adsorbent to examine by Cu(superscript 2+) adsorption capability and isotherms analysis using Langmuir isotherm. In the considerations of real scale and cost-effective applications, sand was immobilization on chitosan to uptake the Cu(superscript 2+) ions in aqueous solution. Moreover, the adsorption capacity of 5% chitosan-coated sand (10.87 mg/g) was a better adsorbent compared to chitosan used alone (7.55 mg/g), 1% (3.38 mg/g) and 2.5% (4.50 mg/g) weight percentages coasted with chitosan. It is suggested that using 5 % chitosan-coated sand as a bioadsorbent in wastewater treatment process.