Abstract
Cellulose nanofibers were covalently functionalized using diethylenetriamine penta (methylene phosphonic acid) and studied for the extraction of heavy metal ions. The surface-functionalized nanofibers showed a high adsorption capacity towards heavy metal ions as compared to bare nanofibers. The elemental composition and surface morphology of the prepared bio-adsorbent was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The prepared material was studied to develop a column-based solid phase extraction method for the preconcentration of trace metal ions and their determination by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy. The batch experimental data was well fitted to Langmuir adsorption isotherms (R2 > 0.99) and follows pseudo-second-order kinetics. The experimental variables such as sample pH, equilibrium time, column breakthrough, sorption flow rate, the effect of coexisting ions, and eluent type were systematically studied and optimized accordingly. The detection limit of the proposed method was found to be 0.03, 0.05, and 0.04 µg L−1 for Cu(II), Pb(II), and Cd(II), respectively. Certified Reference Materials were analyzed to validate the proposed method against systematic and constant errors. At a 95% confidence level, the Student’s t-test values were less than the critical Student’s t value (4.302). The developed method was successfully employed for the preconcentration and determination of trace metal ions from real water samples such as river water and industrial effluent.
Highlights
The environmental water pollution due to the occupancy of upraised concentrations of a wide diversity of pollutants such as dyes, antibiotics, organic compounds, and heavy metal ions has been extensively reported in different parts of developed and developing nations in recent decades [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8].Global industrialization and the untreated discharge of wastewater into natural water sources are among the core reasons for severe water pollution [9]
The elemental content (C, O, N, and P) of the APBC observed from the energy dispersive X-ray analysis spectroscopy (EDS) spectra, and the elemental mapping of SEM images (Figure 3A–D) illustrate the homogeneous distribution of the constituent surface elements of APBC adsorbent, and the successful immobilization of poly(aminophosphonic acid) onto cellulose nanofibers
The prepared material was successfully employed for the separation and preconcentration of heavy metal ions from real water samples
Summary
Global industrialization and the untreated discharge of wastewater into natural water sources are among the core reasons for severe water pollution [9]. It is necessary to remove such pollutants from industrial and pharmaceutical wastewater before their discharge into the environmental water systems. Different water treatment technologies have been reported, such as catalysis, advanced oxidation process, chemical precipitation, electrochemical reduction, membrane separation, and adsorption [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Polymers 2020, 12, 2370 precipitation method, which generates a large amount of toxic residue and leads to secondary pollution, while the electrochemical process is of high cost with low efficiency. The solid-phase extraction (SPE) technique has been considered a promising method due to its simple preparation, relatively low cost, ability to use both in batch and column procedures, faster kinetics, and high possibility to reuse the adsorbent [21,22,23]
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