Chitosan membrane adsorber for low concentration copper ion removal

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Environmental Science
• Chemical Engineering

Background:

• Chitosan membranes are promising for water treatment.
• Efficient removal of heavy metals like copper is crucial for environmental protection.
• Developing cost-effective and reusable adsorbents is a key challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To prepare and characterize thin chitosan membranes using silica as a porogen.
• To evaluate the static and dynamic adsorption performance of these membranes for Cu(II) removal.
• To investigate the regeneration and reusability of the chitosan membrane adsorber.

Main Methods:

• Preparation of chitosan membranes with silica as a porogen.
• Analysis of membrane physical properties (pore structure, porosity, water affinity).
• Static and dynamic adsorption experiments for Cu(II) removal.
• Kinetic and isotherm modeling (pseudo-second order, Toth, BDST, Thomas, Yoon and Nelson).

Main Results:

• Chitosan membranes exhibited a symmetric and interconnected pore structure.
• Maximum static Cu(II) adsorption capacity reached 87.5 mg/g, following pseudo-second order kinetics and Toth isotherm.
• Dynamic adsorber effectively removed low concentrations of Cu(II) (>200 μm thickness), with performance enhanced by layering.
• Adsorption behavior was flow-independent, indicating fast mass transfer.

Conclusions:

• Thin chitosan membranes are effective adsorbents for Cu(II) removal from water.
• The developed adsorber demonstrates good performance in dynamic conditions and is regenerable.
• These findings highlight the potential of chitosan membranes for wastewater treatment applications.