Electrospun cellulose acetate nanofiber incorporated with hydroxyapatite for removal of heavy metals

Due to the negative impact of the heavy metal ions in water, the rejection of these toxic materials is one of the urgent requests for wastewater treatment. This work aims to facile fabrication and characterization of new organic/inorganic hybrid nanofiber membrane composites for removal of Fe (III) and Pb (II) ions using a batch technique. The manufacturing of pure cellulose acetate nanofibers (CA NFs) and its impregnated with hydroxyapatite (CA/HAp) nanocomposite fibers is explored by an electrospinning process. A production process of uniform and bead-free nanofiber is developed by adjusting various electrospinning conditions. The experiments prove that the slight changes in operating parameters may result in significant variations in the fiber morphology. The influence of various adsorption conditions and its effect on the removal efficiency is investigated. High separation efficiency of about 99.7 and 95.46% within 35 and 40 min. for adsorption Pb (II) and Fe (III) ions using hybrid nanofiber composite, respectively are obtained. The adsorption process was found to obey a pseudo-second-order and Freundlich models. The adsorption mechanism on the CA/HAp composite can be established via ion exchange and surface complexation.