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Effective removal of Cr(VI) from solution by three-dimensional polyaniline loaded composite porous hydrogel

  • Composites & nanocomposites
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Abstract

It is still challenging to avoid polyaniline agglomeration and fabricate polyaniline-based adsorbents with stable structure, excellent adsorption performance. Herein, we synthesized montmorillonite/humic acid/polyvinyl alcohol@polyaniline (MMT/HA/PVA@PANI) composite porous hydrogel adsorbent by Pickering emulsion template-in situ chemical oxidative polymerization, and the enhancement effect of this design idea on the adsorption performance of PANI was studied with heavy metal ion hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) as the target adsorbate. The in-situ polymerization of aniline at the Pickering emulsion interface and the unique three-dimensional network structure of the hydrogel act as an effective “confinement” for the growth of the polyaniline. The porous structure of hydrogel can be used as water channel, which can accelerate the combination of adsorbate and adsorption site, and significantly improve the adsorption capacity and adsorption rate. Compared with the pure PANI (43.48 mg g−1 PANI), MMT/HA/PVA@PANI (1753.60 mg g−1 PANI) obviously had significantly higher removal efficiency, which increased the removal efficiency of Cr(VI) by about 40 times. Adsorption experiments suggest that solution pH, adsorbent dosage, contact time and initial concentration all have certain effects on adsorption performance. According to the FESEM, EDX, FTIR and XPS analysis of the materials before and after adsorption, the removal of Cr(VI) is mainly enhanced by ion exchange, electrostatic attraction and chemical reduction. In conclusion, MMT/HA/PVA@PANI adsorbent has novel design, good adsorption performance and strong stability, and it has great development prospects in removing heavy metal ions from wastewater.

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Funding

This work was supported by preparation of lignite humic acid-based magnetic composite microspheres and their adsorption properties for heavy metal ions, National Natural Science Foundation of China (21576001).

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  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma Xiang Road, Ma’anshan, 243000, People’s Republic of China

    Xuejiao Zhang, Wenjie Zou & Jun Chen

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  2. Wenjie Zou
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. XZ: process the data and write the manuscript. WZ: complete material preparation, data collection and analysis. JC: corresponding author. Directed, revised, and supplemented the manuscript. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript, and all authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jun Chen.

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Zhang, X., Zou, W. & Chen, J. Effective removal of Cr(VI) from solution by three-dimensional polyaniline loaded composite porous hydrogel. J Mater Sci 58, 15396–15410 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-023-08987-2

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