High affinity of 3D spongin scaffold towards Hg(II) in real waters

This study focuses on the ability of commercial natural bath sponges, which are made from the skeletons of marine sponges, to sorb Hg from natural waters. The main component of these bath sponges is spongin, which is a protein-based material, closely related to collagen, offering a plenitude of reactive sites from the great variety of amino acids in the protein chains, where the Hg ions can sorb. For a dose of 40 mg L^-1 and initial concentration of 50 μg L^-1 of Hg(II), marine spongin (MS) removed ~90% of Hg from 3 water matrixes (ultrapure, bottled, and seawater), corresponding to a residual concentration of ~5 μg L^-1, which tends to the recommend value for drinking water of 1 μg L^-1. This value was maintained even by increasing the MS dosage, suggesting the existence of a gradient concentration threshold below which the Hg sorption mechanism halts. Kinetic modelling showed that the Pseudo Second-Order equation was the best fit for all the water matrixes, which indicates that the sorption mechanism relies most probably on chemical interactions between the functional groups of spongin and the Hg ions. This material can also be regenerated in HNO₃ and reused for Hg sorption, with marginal losses in efficiency, at least for 3 consecutive cycles.