Defluoridation of water using dicarboxylic acids mediated chitosan-polyaniline/zirconium biopolymeric complex

The present investigation describes the preparation of hydrogen bonded chitosan-polyaniline/zirconium biopolymeric matrix by grafting method under dicarboxylic acid medium for the removal of fluoride, first time. Herein, the dicarboxylic acids, oxalic acid, malonic acid, succinic acid were used as medium. The synthesized complex was characterized by usual analytical techniques like FTIR, XRD, SEM and EDAX analysis. From the batch equilibrium experiments, the maximum defluoridation capacity (DC) was found to be 8.713 mg/g at room temperature with the minimum contact time of 24 min at 100 mg of the sorbent dosage. The temperature study results of adsorption kinetics showed the adsorption behavior could be better described by the pseudo-second-order equation than pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The adsorption isotherm was well fitted by the Freundlich equation rather than Langmuir and D-R isotherms. The mechanism of fluoride removal was ligand exchange at neutral pH and electrostatic attraction at acidic pH of the medium. Regeneration studies were carried out to identify the best regenerant which makes the process cost-effective. Conclusions of this work demonstrate the potential applicability of the dicarboxylic acid mediated chitosan-polyaniline/zirconium complex as an effective adsorbent for fluoride removal from water.