Adsorbents fabricated with biopolymer are extremely fascinating from the material design aspect, with numerous advantages like excellent biocompatibility, good biodegradability and availability at low cost. In this paper, a novel salecan polysaccharide-based biosorbent was designed for removal of Cd2+ ions from aqueous solutions. The resulting adsorbent was characterized by FTIR, XRD, TGA, SEM, rheology and swelling measurements. Adsorption of Cd2+ onto the salecan biosorbent was evaluated taking into account salecan amount, sorbent dosage, solution pH, initial Cd2+ concentration and contact time. Pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Weber-Morris intra-particle diffusion model well fitted the kinetic results, suggesting chemisorption and intra-particle diffusion as the most probable adsorption mechanism. Meanwhile, the equilibrium adsorption data was nicely described by Langmuir isotherm model with a maximum adsorption capacity of 170.1 mg Cd2+ per gram of sample. Finally, the salecan biosorbent exhibited an excellent reusability and 89.2% of the original sorption ability remained after 6 cycles. The present findings suggest that salecan-based biosorbents have potential for application as a wastewater remediation device.
Keywords: Adsorbents; Biopolymer; Reusability; Salecan; Wastewater remediation.
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