Regeneration of Calcium Alginate and Chitosan Coated Calcium Alginate Sorbents to be Reused for Lead (II) Removal from Aqueous Solutions

Abstract

The application of biopolymer-based sorbents in solving some environmental problems such as the removal and recovery of heavy metals from natural polluted water and wastewater has received lately a lot of attention due to their unique characteristics. The fundamental properties that recommend the usage of biopolymers-based sorbents for environmental remediation are: high selectivity and sorption capacity, renewability, safe manipulation, sorption capacity increase through simple physical and chemical methods, easy separation from treated water, and easy regeneration and reuse for repetitive sorption-desorption cycles. Accordingly, this research study has as purpose to present the results related to the usage of two types of alginate sorbents (calcium alginate and chitosan coated calcium alginate) in four repetitive lead(II) ions sorption-desorption cycles and to examine the influence of desorption agents on structural sorbent�s characteristics. The results obtained showed that both calcium alginate and chitosan coated calcium alginate are good stable sorbents to be used in lead(II) ions sorption-desorption cycles.