Synthesis of quaternized chitosan-coated magnetic nanoparticles for oil-water separation

In this letter, we reported successful development of a class of novel quaternized chitosan (QC)-coated magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) for oil-water separation. Fe3O4 MNPs were coated with silica and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES), followed by QC grafting to yield QC-coated MNPs. Results showed that Fe3O4 and Fe3O4@SiO2 MNPs exhibited negligible oil-water separation effect and APTES coating onto Fe3O4@SiO2 MNPs could only improve its separation efficiency under acidic condition. However, QC coated MNPs not only exhibited excellent oil-water separation performance at various pH levels, but also could be reused up to 8 times without showing significant decrease in separation efficiency. Results suggested QC-coated MNP could potentially be used as a class of promising materials for oil-water separation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.