Hydrogels derived from galactoglucomannan hemicellulose with inorganic contaminant removal properties

Leonidas Encina; Elizabeth Elgueta; Bernabé L Rivas; Miguel Pereira; Felipe Sanhueza

doi:10.1039/d1ra06278f

Hydrogels derived from galactoglucomannan hemicellulose with inorganic contaminant removal properties

RSC Adv. 2021 Nov 8;11(57):35960-35972. doi: 10.1039/d1ra06278f. eCollection 2021 Nov 4.

Authors

Leonidas Encina¹, Elizabeth Elgueta², Bernabé L Rivas¹, Miguel Pereira³, Felipe Sanhueza⁴

Affiliations

¹ Polymer Department, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Concepción Casilla 160-C Concepción Chile brivas@udec.cl.
² Centro de Investigación de Polímeros Avanzados, CIPA Avenida Collao 1202, Edificio de Laboratorios Concepción Chile e.elgueta@cipachile.cl.
³ Departmento de Ingeniería Química, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Concepción Casilla 160-C Concepción Chile.
⁴ Instituto de Materiales y Procesos Termomecánicos, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Austral de Chile Valdivia Chile.

Abstract

The adsorption of Cu(ii), Cd(ii), and Pb(ii) ions onto hydrogels derived from modified galactoglucomannan (GGM) hemicellulose was studied. GGM hemicellulose was modified with methacrylate groups (GGM-MA) to incorporate vinyl groups into the polymeric structure, which reacted later with synthetic monomers such as 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid (AMPS). The results show that all the synthesized hydrogels were capable of adsorbing contaminating ions with high adsorption efficiency during short periods of time. Furthermore, an increase in the content of GGM-MA generated a hydrogel (H3) with a similar ion adsorption property to the other hydrogels but with a lesser degree of swelling. The H3 hydrogel had an adsorption capacity of 60.0 mg g^-1 Cd(ii), 78.9 mg g^-1 Cu(ii), and 174.9 mg g^-1 Pb(ii) at 25 °C. This result shows that modified GGM hemicelluloses can be employed as renewable adsorbents to remove Cu(ii), Cd(ii), and Pb(ii) ions from aqueous solutions.