Facile preparation of a cellulose-based bioadsorbent modified by hPEI in heterogeneous system for high-efficiency removal of multiple types of dyes

This work presents a facile and practical preparation method of cellulose-based bioadsorbent modified by hyperbranched polyethyleneimine (hPEI) using glutaraldehyde cross-linking in heterogeneous system for various dyes removal. The grafting of hPEI with a large molecular structure was achieved efficiently according to the FTIR and XPS analysis. The adsorption properties of the cellulose-based bioadsorbent for anionic reactive yellow X-RG (XRG), cationic bright yellow M-7G (M7G), nonionic disperse brown S-3RL (DB 3) were explored. The kinetics curve was well fitted with pseudo-second-order model, and the equilibrium data well suited Langmuir model with maximum adsorption capacity of 571.43 mg g−1 for M7G, 581.40 mg g−1 for DB 3 and 970.87 mg g−1 for XRG. Compared with other bioadsorbents reported previously, the cellulose-based bioadsorbent could be facilely prepared and simultaneously exhibited enhanced removal for dyes. Therefore, this work will help accelerate the study of scale production of bioadsorbent for treatment of textile effluents.