Water contamination caused by synthetic dyes has received considerable attention as dyes are extensively utilized in diverse industries and most of them are toxic, nonbiodegradable, and carcinogenic. Therefore, developing efficient methods to remove them from water sources is necessary. Here, soybean hulls extracted TEMPO-cellulose nanofiber (TEMPO-CNF) and polyethylenimine (PEI) composite hydrogels (TEMPO-CNF/PEI) were synthesized by combination of cationic pre-crosslinking and physical adsorption between the polymers to remove methyl blue dyes from water. In this work, cellulose nanofibers from soybean hulls were oxidized by TEMPO mediated oxidation to introduce carboxyl groups, which chelated with zinc ions to form TEMPO-CNF hydrogels. Then, these hydrogels were immersed into PEI solution for the resulting functionalization. Finally, the adsorption performance of TEMPO-CNF/PEI hydrogels for methyl blue was evaluated using UV/Vis. It was found that the adsorption capacity at adsorption equilibrium increased linearly with the increase of initial concentration of methyl blue (from 20 to 1159 mg/g when the initial concentration of methyl blue increased from 11.4 to 691.6 mg/L), while the adsorption efficiency decreased slowly (from 100 % to 93%). Adsorption isotherm fitted the Freundlich model suggesting multilayer adsorption. Adsorption capacity and efficiency of these hydrogels for methyl blue show great potential in water remediation.

TEMPO oxidized nanofibrillated cellulose(CNF)/polyethylene imine (PEI) composite hydrogels for dyes removal from water

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