Some heavy metals are the causes of various diseases among humans. thus, removing heavy metals is necessary in order to control environmental pollutants. the main purpose of this research is to enhance the separation of nickel from water using thiol-functionalized chitosan.
Methods
The functionalized chitosan was prepared by adsorption. for this purpose, a specific amount of chitosan beads were mixed with 3-mercaptopropyl and hydrochloric acid in ethanol. then, the mixture was placed in a paraffin bath for the reaction to occur. the effective parameters in the adsorption process including the time of equilibrium, ph, and concentration were investigated. next, surface morphology and ft-ir were studied.
Results
In this research, chitosan beads with porosities of 0.78 and diameters of 2.5 ± 0.05 were provided from 0.85% de-acetylated chitosan. the optimized equilibrium time was 220 minutes and the optimized ph was estimated to be 7. increasing the amount of adsorbent led to an increase in the removal percentage. furthermore, increasing the initial concentration of nickel in the water lowered the removal percentage of nickel from 72% to 50%.
Conclusion
Our findings indicated that the maximum adsorption capacity of nickel was higher with the use of thiol-functionalized chitosan in comparison with the use of chitosan. thus, this technique can substitute the common methods.
