Abstract
The recycling and reuse of biomass waste for the preparation of carbon-based adsorbents is a sustainable development strategy that has a positive environmental impact. It is well known that a large amount of silk sericin (SS) is dissolved in the wastewater from the silk industry. Utilizing the SS instead of discharging it into the environment without further treatment would reduce environmental and ecological problems. However, effective enrichment of the SS from the aqueous solution is a challenge. Here, with the help of carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), which can form a gel structure under low voltage, an SS/CMCS hydrogel with SS as the major component was prepared via electrodeposition at a 3 V direct-current (DC) voltage for five minutes. Following a carbonization process, an SS-based adsorbent with good performance for the removal of methylene blue (MB) from an aqueous solution was prepared. Our results reveal that the SS/CMCS hydrogel maintains a porous architecture before and after carbonization. Such structure provides abundant adsorption sites facilitating the adsorption of MB molecules, with a maximum adsorptive capacity of 231.79 mg/g. In addition, it suggests that the adsorption is an exothermic process, has a good fit with the Langmuir model, and follows the intra-particle diffusion model. The presented work provides an economical and feasible path for the treatment of wastewater from dyeing and printing.
Highlights
In recent years, with the rapid development of the manufacturing and textile industry, water pollution caused by the effluent from dyeing processes has attracted widespread attention
The Silk sericin (SS)/carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS) hydrogel with porous structure was prepared by electrodeposition at 3 V DC voltage
SS was confirmed as the major component of the SS/CMCS hydrogel by the Bradford assay (77.12 ± 3.48%)
Summary
With the rapid development of the manufacturing and textile industry, water pollution caused by the effluent from dyeing processes has attracted widespread attention. Our previous work showed that CMCS hydrogel can be prepared from a CMCS solution via electrodeposition under low voltage [14]. Kinetics, and thermodynamic studies were conducted to evaluate the mechanisms of MB adsorption onto SC Both Kwak and Hong et al [20,21] reported a method for the preparation of SS-based activated carbon for the adsorption of dyes, both studies did not explore the technique for the SS enrichment from the solution. Both Kwak and Hong’s work required an extraordinary amount of KOH for the creation of SS-based carbon with a porous structure, which raises the cost and threatens the environment
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