Covalently Functionalized Cellulose Nanoparticles for Simultaneous Enrichment of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cu(II) Ions

Huda Alsaeedi; Hilal Ahmad; Malak Faisal Altowairqi; Afnan Abdullah Alhamed; Ali Alsalme

doi:10.3390/polym15030532

Covalently Functionalized Cellulose Nanoparticles for Simultaneous Enrichment of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cu(II) Ions

Polymers (Basel). 2023 Jan 19;15(3):532. doi: 10.3390/polym15030532.

Authors

Huda Alsaeedi¹, Hilal Ahmad², Malak Faisal Altowairqi¹, Afnan Abdullah Alhamed¹, Ali Alsalme¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
² Division of Computational Physics, Institute for Computational Science, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam.

Abstract

Cellulose nanoparticles are sustainable natural polymers with excellent application in environmental remediation technology. In this work, we synthesized cellulose nanoparticles and covalently functionalized them with a multi-functional group possessing ligands. The hybrid material shows excellent adsorption properties for the simultaneous extraction of multiple metal ions in the sample preparation technique. The sorbent shows excellent sorption capacity in the range of 1.8-2.2 mmol/g of material. The developed method was successfully employed for the simultaneous extraction of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cu(II) from real-world samples (industrial effluent, river water, tap and groundwater) and subsequently determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The method shows a preconcentration limit of 0.7 ppb attributes to analyze the trace concentration of studied metal ions. The detection limit obtained for Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cu(II) is found to be 0.4 ppb.

Keywords: ICP-OES; cellulose nanofibers; extraction; heavy metals; pollution.

Grants and funding

The authors extend their appreciation to the Deputyship for Research and Innovation, Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia, for funding this research work through project number IFKSURG-2-224.