New Cellulose based pH-Sensitive Hydrogel for Highly Efficient Dyes Removal in Water Treatment: Kinetic, Thermodynamic, Theoretical and Computational Studies

Abstract

In this paper, a new green pH-sensitive cellulose based hydrogel (swelling rate ~ 1005 %) was successfully elaborated. However, the new EDTA crosslinked HEC was investigated as adsorbent materiel, which it showed high removal efficiency (~2000 mg.g-1) to aquatic micropollutants, especially methylene blue as cationic dyes model. The synthesis of HEC-EDTA at high advanced crosslinking degree (up to 92 %) that confirmed using structural analyzes (FTIR and 13C CP/MAS-NMR), was cried out using DAEDT and DMAP as acyl transfer agent, where the lamellar morphology (2D- microstructure) was highly suggested basing on the average functionality of the reaction system. The kinetic study showed that the adsorption process was better described by pseudo-second-order kinetic, where the thermodynamic parameters exhibited a negative effect of temperature indicating a physical adsorption process. In addition, the adsorption capacity was studied according to the experimental conditions (pH, contact time, concentration, etc.), and the Freundlich model revealed a strong correlation to the experimental results indicating an energetic heterogeneity of the surface active sites. In the other hand, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were conducted and optimized using COMPASS II, where the results showed a good agreement with the experiment, and that basing on the intermolecular Non-covalent interaction, molecular structure and cluster configurations.