TY - JOUR
T1 - Cellulosic Ternary Nanocomposite for Affordable and Sustainable Fluoride Removal
AU - Egor, Moses
AU - Kumar, Avula Anil
AU - Ahuja, Tripti
AU - Mukherjee, Sritama
AU - Chakraborty, Amrita
AU - Sudhakar, Chennu
AU - Srikrishnarka, Pillalamarri
AU - Bose, Sandeep
AU - Ravindran, Swathy Jakka
AU - Pradeep, Thalappil
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Sugi Shivan for making FTIR measurements, Biswajit Modal for HRTEM-EDS, and Manu Santhanam for his help in conducting direct shear stress analysis. The authors are grateful to the technicians of the Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras, for helping to carry out PXRD and BET analyses. The authors thank Ramesh Kumar for his help in setting up the cartridge experiment. For their help in TOC measurements, the authors wish to thank Ligy Philip and Narasamma of the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Madras. Finally, M.E. is grateful to all members of the Pradeep Research Group for their help with experimental work and interpretation. The authors thank IIT Madras and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, for supporting our research program on nanomaterials. M.E. is a student of Mbarara University of Science and Technology and was a research fellow at IIT Madras during this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Chemical Society
PY - 2021/9/27
Y1 - 2021/9/27
N2 - Adsorption is shown to be an extremely affordable and sustainable way of producing clean water, particularly in resource-limited settings. In this paper, we sought to synthesize an effective cellulose-based composite adsorbent from eco-friendly, earth-abundant, and consequently affordable ingredients at room temperature for fluoride removal from drinking water. We utilized the synergistic effect of various renewable materials and active sites of metal oxyhydroxides in developing an effective adsorbent, which is physically stable under the conditions of use. Nanoscale oxyhydroxides of aluminum and iron were scaffolded into a matrix of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to form a nanocomposite adsorbent, which was prepared in water, eventually making a water-stable porous solid. This was used in batch and cartridge adsorption experiments for fluoride removal. The adsorbent surface before (in situ) and after fluoride uptake was characterized using various analytical techniques. Thein situcomposite exhibited a surface area of 134.3 m2/g with an amorphous solid structure with Al and Fe uniformly distributed in the cellulose matrix. From the batch adsorption experiments, we observed 80% fluoride removal within the first 3 min of contact, with a maximum uptake capacity of 75.2 mg/g as modeled by the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, better than most reported materials. The adsorbent effectively reduced F-levels in field water from 10 to 0.3 mg/L, less than 1.5 mg/L the World Health Organization upper limit for drinking water. Optimum F-removal was achieved between the pH of 4-9; however, the effectiveness of the adsorbent was reduced in the presence of competing ions in the order PO43-> SiO32-> CO32-> HCO3-> SO42-. A cartridge experiment demonstrated the applicability of the adsorbent in a domestic point-of-use water purifier for defluoridation. Sustainability metrics of the material were evaluated. Defluoridation using the material is estimated to cost $3.3 per 1000 L of treated water at the scale of community implementation projects.
AB - Adsorption is shown to be an extremely affordable and sustainable way of producing clean water, particularly in resource-limited settings. In this paper, we sought to synthesize an effective cellulose-based composite adsorbent from eco-friendly, earth-abundant, and consequently affordable ingredients at room temperature for fluoride removal from drinking water. We utilized the synergistic effect of various renewable materials and active sites of metal oxyhydroxides in developing an effective adsorbent, which is physically stable under the conditions of use. Nanoscale oxyhydroxides of aluminum and iron were scaffolded into a matrix of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to form a nanocomposite adsorbent, which was prepared in water, eventually making a water-stable porous solid. This was used in batch and cartridge adsorption experiments for fluoride removal. The adsorbent surface before (in situ) and after fluoride uptake was characterized using various analytical techniques. Thein situcomposite exhibited a surface area of 134.3 m2/g with an amorphous solid structure with Al and Fe uniformly distributed in the cellulose matrix. From the batch adsorption experiments, we observed 80% fluoride removal within the first 3 min of contact, with a maximum uptake capacity of 75.2 mg/g as modeled by the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, better than most reported materials. The adsorbent effectively reduced F-levels in field water from 10 to 0.3 mg/L, less than 1.5 mg/L the World Health Organization upper limit for drinking water. Optimum F-removal was achieved between the pH of 4-9; however, the effectiveness of the adsorbent was reduced in the presence of competing ions in the order PO43-> SiO32-> CO32-> HCO3-> SO42-. A cartridge experiment demonstrated the applicability of the adsorbent in a domestic point-of-use water purifier for defluoridation. Sustainability metrics of the material were evaluated. Defluoridation using the material is estimated to cost $3.3 per 1000 L of treated water at the scale of community implementation projects.
KW - aluminum oxyhydroxide
KW - carboxymethyl cellulose
KW - composite adsorbent
KW - defluoridation
KW - fluoride
KW - iron oxyhydroxide
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116227534&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.1c03272
DO - 10.1021/acssuschemeng.1c03272
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85116227534
SN - 2168-0485
VL - 9
SP - 12788
EP - 12799
JO - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
JF - ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering
IS - 38
ER -