Preparation and evaluation of Pb(II)-imprinted fucoidan-based sorbents

Fucoidan, a sulfated polysaccharide extracted from brown seaweed, was, in the form of a silica composite, studied as a prospective cation imprinting matrix. The preparation of such composites in the presence of cations with a strong interaction with the biopolymer chains was expected to direct them towards arrangements, optimized for the sorption of those cations. As expected, the presence of Cu(II), a weakly fucoidan-binding cation, in the synthesis of the composites did not result in the production of significantly stronger Cu(II)-oriented binding arrangements, and therefore the imprinting was not successful. However, with Pb(II), with much stronger affinity for fucoidan, the materials obtained exhibited stronger (22%) binding as compared to the non-imprinted counterparts, and increased selectivity (1.4-1.6 fold) against Cd(II). Although these imprinting features were close to those observed previously with other sulfated polysaccharides, the fucoidan-based Pb(II) imprints developed here presented superior sorption properties, namely a higher capacity and higher binding strength for Pb(II). These features, demonstrated by the material developed here, may easily be put to work in different areas where Pb(II) sensing, determination, separation or remediation is of the utmost importance.