Abstract
Cellulose (CE) and its composite with sulfonated polyethersulfone (CE-SPES) have been produced from their resources (rice wastes and polyethersulfone (PES)) and applied for the scavenging of Zn2+ ion from synthetic wastewater. The characterization techniques confirmed the successful formation of new materials as well as the functionalization of their surfaces with OH and SO3H groups. To optimize the parameters for the batch experiment, the effects of sorbent dose (SD), equilibrium contact time (CT), pH, temperature (T), and initial Zn2+ concentration were investigated. The following conditions were determined to be optimal: pH = 5; CT = 5 min for CE and 30 min for SPES, SD = 0.2 g for CE and 0.02 g for SPES, T = 25 °C for CE and 30 °C for SPES; and Zn2+ concentration = 2 ppm. Zn2+ adsorption on CE and CE-SPES followed Langmuir (R2 = 0.956 and 0.968, respectively) with minor contribution of Freundlich model (R2 = 0.809–0.859). Both biosorbents exhibited pseudo-second-order kinetics for Zn2+ adsorption (R2 = 0.974–0.992). The negative ΔH° and ΔS° values indicated that the Zn2+ adsorption was exothermic and Zn2+ ions are more orderly spread over the adsorbent surface.
•Cellulose (CE) and its composite with sulfonated polyethersulfone (CE-SPES) were synthesized.•Biosorption of Zn2+ CE and CE-SPES has been studied and optimized.•CE and CE-SPES exhibited excellent adsorption capacity.•Zn2+ sorption was fitted well with the pseudo-2nd-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm model.•Adsorption energetic indices revealed that CE-SPES is more effective scavenger than CE