Rare earth elements have received a lot of attention in recent years due to their increasing demand in high-tech industries. Cerium is of current interest and is commonly used in different industries and medical applications. Cerium's uses are expanding due to its superior chemical characteristics over other metals. In this study, different functionalized chitosan macromolecule sorbents were developed from shrimp waste for cerium recovery from a leached monazite liquor. The process involves demineralization, deproteinization, deacetylation, and chemical modification steps. A new class of two-multi-dentate nitrogen and nitrogen‑oxygen donor ligand-based macromolecule biosorbents was synthesized and characterized for cerium biosorption. The crosslinked chitosan/epichlorohydrin, chitosan/polyamines, and chitosan/polycarboxylate biosorbents have been produced from marine industrial waste (shrimp waste) using a chemical modification approach. The produced biosorbents were used to recover cerium ions from aqueous mediums. The affinity of the adsorbents towards cerium was tested in batch systems under different experimental conditions. The biosorbents showed high affinities for cerium ions. The percentage of cerium ions removed (%) from its aqueous system by polyamines and polycarboxylate chitosan sorbents is 85.73 and 90.92 %, respectively. The results indicated that the biosorbents have a high biosorption capacity for cerium ions from aqueous and leach liquor streams.
Keywords: Cerium; Macromolecule; Monazite; Rare earth elements; Recovery; Shrimp waste.
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