Superior capacity and easy separation of zirconium functionalized chitosan melamine foam for antimony(III/V) removal.

Nowadays, highly toxic antimony has severely posed threat to water sources and jeopardized human health. Fabricating adsorbents with the capability of easy separation, high efficiency and large adsorption capacity remains a major challenge. In this paper, zirconium functionalized chitosan melamine foam (ZCMF) was fabricated with zirconium and chitosan crosslinked onto melamine foam, then utilized for the removal of antimony(III/V) in water. The characterization of SEM and EDS collectively showed that ZCMF has a porous structure which could boost the mass transfer rate and zirconium ions on the surface could provide plentiful active adsorption sites. Systematic adsorption experiments demonstrated that the experimental data of Sb(III) and Sb(V) were consistent with the pseudo-second-order and Elovich kinetic models, respectively, and the Langmuir maximum adsorption capacities were separately 255.35 mg g-1 (Sb(III)) and 414.41 mg g-1 (Sb(V)), which displayed prominent performance among adsorbents derived from biomass. Combining the XPS and FTIR characterization with experimental data, it is rational to speculate that ZCMF could remove Sb from aqueous solution through ligand exchange, electrostatic attraction, and surface complexation mechanisms. ZCMF exhibited excellent performance, including large adsorption capacity, easy separation, facile preparation and eco-friendliness. It could be a promising new adsorbent for the treatment of antimony-containing wastewater.

Enhanced removal of methylene blue from wastewater by alginate/carboxymethyl cellulose-melamine sponge composite.

Industrial dye wastewater poses a threat to human health due to its harmful effects, and the treatment of related wastewater is receiving increasing attention. In this paper, the melamine sponge with high porosity and convenient separation was selected as matrix material, and alginate/carboxymethyl cellulose-melamine sponge composite (SA/CMC-MeS) was prepared through crosslinking strategy. Not only does the composite cleverly combined the merits of alginate and carboxymethyl cellulose, it also enhanced the adsorption performance for methylene blue (MB). The adsorption data manifested that the adsorption process of SA/CMC-MeS agreed with the Langmuir model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model, and theoretical maximum adsorption capacity was 230 mg/g (pH 8). The characterization results demonstrated that the adsorption mechanism was attributed to the electrostatic attraction between the carboxyl anions on the composite and the dye cations in solution. Importantly, SA/CMC-MeS could selectively separate MB from binary dye system and had positive anti-interference ability in the face of coexisting cations. After 5 times of cycles, the adsorption efficiency remained above 75 %. Based on these outstanding practical properties, this material has a potential to solve dye contamination.