Preparation of biomass-based hydrogels and their efficient heavy metal removal from aqueous solution.

In this work, a porous tobacco straw-based polyacrylic acid hydrogel STS-PAA with high adsorption performance was prepared by polymerizing pretreated waste tobacco straw (TS) with acrylic acid/potassium acrylate by UV radiation initiation. The adsorption performance of metal ions was investigated. The effects of different temperatures (25°C, 35°C, and 45°C), adsorption times (1-420 min), pH values (2.0-6.0) and initial concentrations (0.25-4.0 mmol L) of metal ions on the adsorption amount of heavy metal ions were investigated. The results showed that the hydrogel had a high removal rate of Pb, Cd and Hg in aqueous solution. The adsorption of Pb was particularly effective. When C = 4.0 mmol L, pH = 6, the equilibrium adsorption amount of Pb, Cd and Hg reached 1.49 mmol g, 1.02 mmol L and 0.94 mmol g, respectively. The chemical structure and morphology of the hydrogels were characterized by FT-IR, EDS, SEM and XPS. The Langmuir model fits well with the adsorption system. The kinetic data suggest the adsorption of Pb, Cd and Hg follow the pseudo-first-order model. This indicates that STS-PAA adsorption of three heavy metal ions is monolayer physical adsorption. Thermodynamic analysis shows that the adsorption of Pb, Cd and Hg by STS-PAA is an endothermic (ΔH>0) entropy increase (ΔS>0) non-spontaneous reaction.