During the last decades, the increased awareness towards the protection of the environment has resulted in very strict regulations and legislations regarding the treatment of industrial wastewater and effluents. Consequently, the development of new, efficient, sustainable, ‘greener’, and cheaper adsorbents with diverse functionalities has become of high interest in the scientific world.<br/><br/>We report a facile, water-based preparation method for anionic and cationic cellulose-alginate hybrid beads for the removal of charged pollutants from wastewater. For this work, commercial grade microfibrillated cellulose (Exilva, Boregaard) has been used and was further in-situ functionalized by: i) TEMPO mediated oxidation, to introduce carboxyl groups, and ii) grafting of glycidyltrimethylammonium chloride (GTMAC), to introduce quaternary amines on its surface. The beads were characterized with FTIR, solid-state NMR, conductometric titration, and SEM imaging. The adsorptivity of the beads was studied with UV-Vis, EDS, XPS, and ICP-OES for anionic and cationic organic dyes as well as wastewater from the mining industry. Both methods resulted in highly porous, robust beads in micrometer range with improved adsorption capacity towards charged pollutants comparing to the pristine ones.

In-situ modification of cellulose-alginate beads: Anionic and cationic adsorbents for the removal of charged pollutants from mining wastewater

ACS Spring 2022

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