Paper waste extracted α-cellulose fibers super-magnetized and chitosan-functionalized for covalent laccase immobilization

Enormous disposal of paper wastes (PW) causing number of environmental problems. PW is efficiently used to extract multifunctional alpha-cellulose fibers (alpha CFs). Thus, alpha CFs extraction from PW, and functionalization with Fe3O4 and chitosan were successfully performed for immobilization of laccase. Therefore, in this investigation, PW extracted aCFs were tuned with supermagnetic Fe3O4 (M) and functionalized with chitosan (CTA) (M-PW-alpha CF-CTA). Furthermore, M-PW-alpha CF-CTA was glutaraldehyde cross-linked for covalent laccase immobilization. The synthesized materials were characterized by FT-IR, TGA, FE-SEM, FE-HR-TEM and VSM analyzes. M-PW-alpha CF-CTA exhibited magnetic saturation value of 14.72 emu/g. Laccase immobilized on M-PW-alpha CF-CTA (M-PW-alpha CF-CTA-Lac) gave 92% of activity recovery and loading capacity of 73.30 mg/g. M-PW-alpha CF-CTA-Lac showed excellent pH, temperature, and storage stabilities with the exceptional reusability potential. Moreover, M-PW-alpha CF-CTA-Lac was applied for repeated removal of carcinogenic Direct Red 28 (DR28). Therefore, M-PW-alpha CFCTA- Lac is green and economical biocatalyst with extraordinary separation potential can be enforced for environmental pollutants reclamation.