To study the effects of sodium alginate on chitosan beads and their adsorption of copper and nickel ions

Abstract

Heavy metal toxicity has proved to be an imperative problem for environment and human health. There has been an increasing ecological and global public health concern related with environmental contamination by these metals. Hence, a considerable attention has been paid to the design of efficient materials for removal of heavy metals. In this study, adsorbents based on chitosan and sodium alginate were fabricated for the adsorption of metal ions from aqueous solutions. The experimental study was conducted on copper(II) and nickel(II) as the two model heavy metals. The bead samples prepared and studied include chitosan (CH), chitosan-sodium alginate (CH-SA) and sodium alginate-chitosan (SA-CH). Preliminary morphological characterisations were completed with the use of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and adsorption behaviours of the beads were analysed using UltraViolet-Visible Spectrophotometry (UV-Vis). The metal ions adsorption experiments showed that the samples had high affinity to adsorb copper and nickel ions from aqueous solutions.