Copper (II) ions adsorption from aqueous solutions using electrospun chitosan/peo nanofibres: Effects of process variables and process optimization

Water sustainability is becoming a major concern for Canadians. Governments are actually considering various water initiatives to establish recommendations on water governance and policies to ensure the sustainability of water supply for people and industries. The pulp and paper industry is a major user of water. Implementation of such water initiatives will force them to move further towards closed-cycle papermaking. Advanced wastewater treatment methodologies will be mandatory to reduce fresh water consumption with minimum detrimental effects on papermaking operations and paper quality. Adsorption experiments were carried out using electrospun chitosan (CS)/polyethylene oxide (PEO) nanofibres to investigate adsorption of copper (II) ions from aqueous solutions. A central composite design (CCD) was used to investigate the influence of temperature, copper concentration, and adsorbent mass on adsorption efficiency. An optimal adsorption of 94.7% was obtained by using 75 mg of nanofibres in 200 min at pH 5.5 and a temperature of 55.7 °C with initial copper concentration of 100 ppm.