Form Submission: Participation Entry

Research Day Entry

Towards Sustainable Water Treatment: Development of Multifunctional and Selective Adsorbents

Exposure through drinking water to persistent and toxic oxoanions such as arsenic poses potentially serious human and environmental health risks. These metals are released into the environment naturally through weathering of inorganic minerals or from anthropogenic sources such as coal combustion, mining, agriculture, and petroleum refining. One of the largest barriers to effective arsenic removal is competition with background oxanions for adsorption sites. Low specificity (non-selectivity) for the target contaminant over background oxoanions (e.g., phosphate, silicate, sulfate) develops because background oxoanions have similar traits and typically exist at similar or higher concentrations. The design and development of a selective, multifunctional, and regenerable adsorbent is demonstrated for the well-established and notoriously challenging contaminant combination of arsenic and phosphate by modifying chitosan, an inexpensive natural biomaterial waste product. The developed selectivity has benefits across the lifecycle including end of life where sorbent regeneration can potentially yield a relatively pure stream of the target compound reducing the energy and costs to separate and properly dispose of a mixed hazardous waste.