Feather-weight cryostructured thiourea-chitosan aerogels for highly efficient removal of heavy metal ions and bacterial pathogens

Designing of economically feasible and recyclable polysaccharide-based materials with thiourea functional groups for removal of specific metal ions such as Ag(I), Au(I), Pb(II) or Hg(II) remains a major challenge for environmental applications. Here, we introduce ultra-lightweight thiourea-chitosan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of biological macromolecules 2023-04, Vol.235, p.123910-123910, Article 123910
Main Authors: Ghiorghita, Claudiu-Augustin, Lazar, Maria Marinela, Platon, Ioana-Victoria, Humelnicu, Doina, Doroftei, Florica, Dinu, Maria Valentina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerogels
Animals
Chitosan
Chitosan - chemistry
Feathers
Heavy metal ions
Ions
Lead
Metals, Heavy - chemistry
Sorption
Wastewater purification
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Summary:Designing of economically feasible and recyclable polysaccharide-based materials with thiourea functional groups for removal of specific metal ions such as Ag(I), Au(I), Pb(II) or Hg(II) remains a major challenge for environmental applications. Here, we introduce ultra-lightweight thiourea-chitosan (CSTU) aerogels engineered by combining successive freeze-thawing cycles with covalent formaldehyde-mediated cross-linking and lyophilization. All aerogels exhibited outstanding low densities (0.0021–0.0103 g/cm3) and remarkable high specific surface areas (416.64–447.26 m2/g), outperforming the common polysaccharide-based aerogels. Benefitting from their superior structural features (honeycomb interconnected pores and high porosity), CSTU aerogels demonstrate fast sorption rates and excellent performance in sorption of heavy metal ions from highly-concentrated single or binary-component mixtures (1.11 mmol Ag (I)/g and 0.48 mmol Pb(II)/g). A remarkable recycling stability was observed after five sorption-desorption-regeneration cycles when the removal efficiency was up to 80 %. These results support the high potential of CSTU aerogels in the treatment of metal-containing wastewater. Moreover, the Ag(I)-loaded CSTU aerogels exhibited excellent antimicrobial properties against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus bacterial strains, the killing rate being around 100 %. This data points towards the potential application of developed aerogels in circular economy, by employing the spent Ag(I)-loaded aerogels in the biological decontamination of waters.
ISSN:0141-8130
1879-0003
DOI:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.123910