Adsorption of Cr(VI) from Aqueous Solution by Ethylenediaminetetraacetic Acid-Chitosan-Modified Metal-Organic Framework

Abstract

Cu-BTC was synthesised by hydrothermal method in this study to adsorb and remove the toxic heavy metal hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) in water. The EDTA-chitosan/Cu-BTC was prepared by the surface modification of Cu-BTC with EDTA-modified chitosan. The initial concentration effects of adsorbed chromium solution, adsorbent dosage, adsorption time, adsorption temperature and pH of chromium solution on adsorption capacity were estimated using the single-factor optimisation experiment. Results show that the adsorption capacity of the modified composite was higher than that of Cu-BTC. Cu-BTC and EDTA-chitosan/Cu-BTC exhibited significant adsorption of Cr(VI) under acidic conditions in water and basically independent of temperature. Their adsorption processes conformed with the pseudo-second-order model. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm model obtained the adsorption isotherm, which indicated that the adsorption process was single molecule adsorption. Isotherm fitting obtained the maximum adsorption amounts of Cr(VI) for Cu-BTC and EDTA-chitosan/Cu-BTC at 27.32 and 46.51 mg·g-1, respectively. Factor and principal component analyses show that the main factors affecting the adsorption of Cr(VI) in the EDTA-chitosan/Cu-BTC composites are pH, initial concentration and adsorption time. Therefore, EDTA-chitosan-modified Cu-BTC was a more feasible metal-organic framework material than Cu-BTC because of better adsorption performance, which can be used for adsorption removal of Cr(VI) in water.