Application of polyurethane foam chitosan-coated as a low-cost adsorbent in the effluent treatment

Synthetic dyes are an important class of organic pollutants, and a part of the total amount of dye used in dyeing processes are discarded as effluent, which is discharged into the environment with harmful effects on aquatic life. Dyes removal by adsorption is an attractive method due to the effectiveness and economic viability. Thus, in the present work, a low-cost adsorbent, obtained by using polyurethane foam coated with chitosan film (0.51 wt %), was developed for textile reactive dyes removal in aqueous solutions. Polyurethane foam chitosan-coated (PU chitosan-coated) was characterized by zeta potential, Fourier transformed infrared and scanning electronic microscopy. For the isotherms adjustment, as well as, the determination of the influence of the temperature, adsorption kinetics, and adsorbent reuse capacity, batch experiments were carried out using reactive blue dye RB198. The experimental data were evaluated by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm, and the data showed a better correlation with Langmuir isotherm with a maximum adsorption capacity of 86.43 mg g(-1). In addition, in this work, it was verified that even after seven reuse cycles of adsorption, the PU chitosan-coated was efficiently in the RB198 dye remove, confirming the advantage of the proposed PU chitosan-coated as a low-cost adsorbent.