Chitosan, a natural organic polymer, has shown bifunctional characteristics in the removal of cationic and anionic contaminants from water and wastewater treatment. In particular, cationic Cu(II) and anionic phosphate can simultaneously interact with chitosan owing to the presence of the amino group in the form of NH2 and NH3+ in chitosan. To gain greater insight into the bifunctional adsorption characteristics of chitosan, its adsorption capacity for Cu(II) and phosphate was tested under single and mixed (co-ion) conditions to investigate the interactions between four types of chitosan beads and NH2 and NH3+. In the single condition, Cu(II) uptake was reduced from 0.243 to 0.0197 mmol/g due to the crosslinking and drying processes, whereas no significant reduction in phosphate uptake was observed, indicating that the crosslinking agent only interacted with NH2 to decrease the number of available adsorption sites for Cu(II). Under the mixed condition, the simultaneous presence of the two ions clearly increased the uptake of each other, with the adsorption of phosphate being more influenced than that of Cu(II). The comparison of the rate constant, k1 or k2, using pseudo-first- and pseudo-second-order models confirmed that phosphate reached equilibrium faster than Cu(II), suggesting that electrostatic interaction was preferred over coordination. In addition, under mixed conditions, co-ion competition slowed down the adsorption kinetics for both Cu(II) and phosphate.
Keywords: Cu(II); adsorption; amino group; chitosan; phosphate.