Fabrication and characterization of chitosan, oxidized cellulose @GO with Aminopropyltriethoxysilane composite for...

Formulation of 3D composite has been designed based on chitosan (CS), sodium alginate (SA), oxidized cellulose, graphene oxide (GO) and Aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) as a source of Si (CS/SA/Cell/GO/Si). Firstly, cellulose has been oxidized by 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO) reagent to prepare oxidized cellulose (Ox. cell.) with reactive groups. Then graphite has been oxidized by Hummer method to prepare graphene oxide (GO). The oxidized compounds were mixed in different ratios with chitosan (CS) and Aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) to form CS/SA/Cell/GO/Si composite that capable of removing zirconium (Zr) from solution. The prepared composite has been investigated via infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM). The surface area and pore size were evaluated by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) theory (BET). Zirconium removal has been studied at different conditions including contact time, pH, sorbent dosage, and initial concentrations of Zr. As well as kinetic and isotherm models were studied and the result fit with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Langmuir isotherm model via chemisorption monolayer adsorption process. CS/SA/Cell/GO/Si composite showed high adsorption capacity qe = 161 mg/g, at 1 h, 25 °C with pH 1.4 and 0.08 g of composite. Additionally, zirconium desorption reported about 90%, and 80% for sulfuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids, respectively.