Thermodynamic and kinetic studies on harmful algal blooms harvesting by novel etherified cationic straw flocculant

Haihua Wu; Haixing Chang; Nianbing Zhong; Yuting Tang; Yuqi Gong; Wenbo Wu; Jian Liu; Taikun Yin; Gang Li; Shih-Hsin Ho

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127737

Thermodynamic and kinetic studies on harmful algal blooms harvesting by novel etherified cationic straw flocculant

Bioresour Technol. 2022 Oct:361:127737. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127737. Epub 2022 Aug 2.

Authors

Haihua Wu¹, Haixing Chang², Nianbing Zhong³, Yuting Tang¹, Yuqi Gong¹, Wenbo Wu¹, Jian Liu⁴, Taikun Yin⁵, Gang Li⁵, Shih-Hsin Ho⁶

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing 400054, China.
² College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing 400054, China; State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150090, China. Electronic address: changhx@cqut.edu.cn.
³ Intelligent Fiber Sensing Technology of Chongqing Municipal Engineering Research Center of Institutions of Higher Education, Chongqing Key Laboratory of Fiber Optic Sensor and Photodetector, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing 400054, China.
⁴ College of Petrochemical Technology, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, China.
⁵ College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, School of Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150090, China.

PMID: 35931283
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127737

Abstract

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are growing threats that cause tens of billion dollars economic loss annually. Aiming at efficient disposal of HABs, a cheap and eco-friendly cationic straw was developed by etherification of wheat straw, which replaced hydroxyl groups on cellulose by quaternary ammonium groups. It endowed the cationic straw with high positive charge and achieved 93.92% of harvesting efficiency by enhancing HABs cells aggregation via charge neutralization. Different from inorganic salts-based flocculants, HABs harvesting by the cationic straw is a spontaneous and exothermic process with negative ΔG° and ΔH° under all adsorption conditions. Thermodynamics and kinetics analysis elucidated that HABs adsorption process by cationic straw were mainly driven by physical forces. Together, cationic straw preparation and HABs harvesting processes were comprehensively optimized with orthogonal experiments. The work may inspire cost-effective HABs disposal and fill knowledge gaps of process nature for HABs harvesting.

Keywords: Cationic straw; Flocculation; Harmful algal blooms; Kinetic; Thermodynamic.

MeSH terms

Adsorption
Flocculation
Harmful Algal Bloom*
Kinetics
Thermodynamics