Cellulose from Tamarix aphylla’s stem via acetocell for cadmium adsorption

Abstract

This study emphasized the efficiency of unconventional delignification treatment “Acetocell” as a basic pretreatment to isolate cellulose fiber from Tamarix aphylla’s stem. Chemical proprieties of obtained cellulose were determined and its efficiency for cadmium ions adsorption was evaluated subsequently. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction analysis, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), fluorescence microscope and Morfi were used to analyze the thermochemical and morphological characteristics of the fibers before and after treatment. Cellulose was used as a biosorbent to remove cadmium ions from polluted water. The effects of many parameters on the efficiency removal of cadmium were investigated; the amount of cellulose, the contact time, pH and the initial concentration of cadmium ions. The optimum conditions were 45 mg of adsorbent, 45 mg L−1, 1200 min and pH 8 which provide best adsorption capacity equal to 44.21 mg g−1. The energy value E = 6.65 kJ mol−l which confirm the physical interaction between cellulose-cadmium ions. Then Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich models were followed for modeling adsorption. Langmuir isotherm and the pseudo-second order model seems the most suitable which describe better the adsorption of cadmium ions with best R2 values which equal to 0.9937 and 0.9979, respectively.