role of modified and chelated cellulose for removal of copper from aqueous solution

ABSTRACT

This work describes preparation of new chelating materials derived from cellulose for adsorption of Cu+"ion from aqueous solutions. The first part involved treatment of cellulose with NaOH, NH4OH, citric acid, oxalic acid and ferric chloride and chelation processes. The products of the above treatments were subjected to elemental analysis, infrared spectra and X- ray powder diffraction. The second part consists of evaluating the adsorption capacity of the none- modified and modified materials for Cu[+] ions from aqueous solutions. Plence, influences of contact time. pH, and initial concentration of Cu[+], on the adsorption process were determined. Maximum adsorption capacities of the modified materials for Cu+2 ions ranged from 46.73 to 188.68, whereas for non-modified cellulose presented 14.33 mg g. The optimum pH value was found to be 6 and the reaction balance was reached after 75 min. Pseudo first and second order kinetic models were fitted to the obtained data indicating different mechanisms for Cu[+] bio-sorption. Among different models used to describe sorption and kinetics of the experimental data, the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models are found to better fit the results. We conclude that the chemically modified cellulose materials can be efficiently used to remove Cu[+] from aqueous solutions