Novel ligand functionalized composite material for efficient copper(II) capturing from wastewater sample

Copper (Cu(II)) is a very toxic heavy metal that even at low concentration can affect living organisms. Therefore, designing effective materials with high selectivity and cost-efficiency is essential for the control capturing of toxic Cu(II) ions. This study was developed a ligand based composite material for simultaneous Cu(II) detection and removal from wastewater samples. The composite material was fabricated based on the ligand anchoring onto the mesoporous silica by direct coating approach. The application of Cu(II) detection and adsorption was measured at neutral pH region with exhibition of significant color visualization. The experiment conditions were optimized based on contact time, solution acidity, initial Cu(II) concentration and pH value and diverse metal salt concentrations. The results were revealed that the composite material was not affected with the existing foreign ions and the signal intensity was observed only toward the Cu(II) ion. The composite material was able to detected the low level Cu(II) ion as the detection limit was 0.25 mu g/L and the adsorption of highest removal capacity was 171.33 mg/g. In addition, the diverse ions were not reduced the Cu(II) ion adsorption significantly, and the composite material has approximately no adsorption capacity for other ions at this pH. The elution of Cu (II) ions from the saturated composite material was desorbed successfully with 0.20 M HCl. The regenerated adsorbent that remained maintained the high selectivity to Cu(II) ions and exhibited almost the same sorption capacity as that of the original adsorbent. However, the sorption efficiency slightly decreased after ten cycles. Therefore, the proposed material offered a cost-effective material and may be considered a viable alternative for effectively toxic Cu(II) ion capturing from water samples without the need for sophisticated instrument.