Bacterial cellulose nanofibers for efficient removal of Hg2+ from aqueous solutions

Abstract

The removal of mercury from wastewater is gaining much attention because of being one of the common heavy metal pollutants found in water source affecting human health and environment. Dye affinity chromatography is a general method for heavy metal removal having high reactivity, stability, easiness, and cost effectiveness. In this study, modified bacterial cellulose nanofibers (BC) were prepared using a dye namely Cibacron Blue F3GA (CB). The covalently attached Cibacron Blue F3GA (17.8 × 104 nmol/g) to the bacterial cellulose nanofibers was successfully applied to remove Hg2+ from aqueous solutions. Cibacron Blue F3GA attachment onto the bacterial cellulose nanofibers significantly increased the Hg2+ adsorption (928.0 mg/g), while the adsorption of Hg2+ onto the unmodified bacterial cellulose nanofibers was obtained very low (0.62 mg/g polymer). The competitive adsorption of heavy metals on BC-CB nanofibers was performed to examine the efficiency of BC-CB nanofibers for Hg2+ in comparison with other divalent metal ions. The adsorption capacities were observed as 322.4 mg/g for Hg2+; 48.5 mg/g for Cd2+; and 41.9 mg/g for Pb2+ indicating higher specificity for Hg2+ adsorption onto BC-CB nanofibers for the mercury ions comparing to other ions. The successive adsorption experiments and elution process demonstrated the efficient repeated workability of modified BC nanofibers. The results show that the preparation of cheap, effective, and eco-friendly nanofibers for mercury removal was performed successfully indicating the potential of BC-CB nanofibers for metal ion removal applications. © 2018 Scrivener Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.