Plasma Induced Grafting Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube with Chitosan and Its Application for Removal of UO22+, Cu2+, and Pb2+ from Aqueous Solutions

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have attracted multidisciplinary interest because of their special physicochemical properties. Herein, chitosan (CS) was grafted onto the surfaces of MWCNTs by using plasma technique. The CS grafted MWCNTs (MWCNT-g-CS) were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) in detail. The prepared MWCNT-g-CS were used to remove UO22+, Cu2+, and Pb2+ ions from large volumes of aqueous solutions under ambient conditions, and the results showed that MWCNT-g-CS has much higher adsorption capacity than MWCNTs in the removal of heavy metal ions. MWCNT-g-CS are suitable materials in the preconcentration and solidification of heavy metal ions from large volumes of aqueous solutions.