Organic-inorganic hybrid of chitosan/organoclay bionanocomposites for hexavalent chromium uptake

Organic-inorganic hybrid of chitosan and nanoclay (Cloisite 10A) was chosen to develop a nanomaterial with combine properties of hydrophilicity of an organic polycation and adsorption capacity of inorganic polyanion. The chitosan/clay nanocomposite (CCN) was prepared by solvent casting method. The material synthesis was found most efficient in adsorbent behavior was studied in detail taking Cr(VI) as representative ion. The chemical, structural and textural characteristics of the material were determined by FTIR, XRD, TEM, SEM and EDAX analysis. XRD and TEM results indicated that an exfoliated structure was formed with addition of small amounts of MMT-Na+(montmorillonite-Na(+)) to the chitosan matrix. These composite material were used for the removal of chromium(VI) from aqueous solution. The conditions for the adsorption by the composite have been optimized and kinetics and thermodynamic studies were performed. Though the adsorption takes place in wide pH range, pH 3 was found most suitable and at this pH the adsorption data were modeled using the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms at 15 °C and 35 °C, where the data fitted satisfactorily to Langmuir isotherms, the R(2) values being 0.998 and 0.999 respectively indicating unilayer adsorption. Based on Langmuir model, Q(o) was calculated to be 357.14 mg/g. The adsorption showed pseudo second order kinetics with a rate constant of 8.0763 × 10(-4) g mg(-1) min(-1) at 100 ppm Cr(VI) concentration.