Removal of stable and radio isotopes from wastewater by using modified microcrystalline cellulose based on Taguchi L16

Abstract

Water pollution connected with rapid industrial growth is one of the most challenging issues worldwide. The disposal of heavy metals turns out to be complex and expensive, so several researchers have tried to remove these pollutants based on abundantly available, inexpensive materials, such as agsricultural waste to be used as sorbents; however, most of these materials have not achieved sufficient removal rates. Consequently, research has been conducted for economic, environmentally benign, and efficient byproduct materials. Among the most auspicious techniques was the extraction of microcrystalline cellulose, chemically modified by a low-molecular-weight organic acid such as citric acid (McC-CA); such materials are powerful chelators for the removal of heavy metals from water bodies. The Taguchi robust design approach was used in present study to optimize the factors determing the efficieny of heavy metal removal, namely ion concentration, pH-value, adsorbent dosage, and contact time, through an orthogonal array (OA) L16 = 4⁴ in batch absorbtion experiments. The results illustrated the optimum combination for Co (II) and Cs (I) adsorption was pH (5–6), C (1–50 mg L⁻¹), D (3–4 g L⁻¹), T (60–100 min) according to contour plots and verification tests, Where the percent removal reached 74 and 88% for cobalt and cesium respectively when using this optimal combination. Furthermore, when this combination was applied to ⁶⁰Co and ¹³⁷Cs the percent removal ranged from 96.01 to 90.28% for ⁶⁰Co, and 100 to 94.25% for ¹³⁷Cs. Therefore, it can be inferred that the use of McC-CA constitutes an effective tool to remove cobalt and cesium ions from waterbodies.