Evaluation of Chitosan Modified by Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate for Removing Hexavalent Chromium from Aqueous Solutions

Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) has the characteristic of forming anionic species, which are very toxic, very soluble in water and difficult to be removed. In this study, dichromate removal from aqueous solutions by chitosan and chitosan modified by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) was addressed. The effect of various experimental parameters, such as pH (1-9), initial concentration (10-100 mg L-1), adsorbent dose (0.005-0.350 g) and contact time (5-60 min) was investigated. All experiments were conducted in batch mode at room temperature (~21 oC). The obtained equilibrium adsorption isotherms were analyzed using the Langmuir and Freundlich models. Furthermore, the kinetics of dichromate removal was analyzed by pseudo-first order, pseudo-second order and the Elovich models. Optimum conditions for obtaining high removal (~97%) within a relatively short time (60 min) are: 5.0 pH, 0.100 g SDS-chitosan dosage and an initial Cr2O72- concentration of 10 mg L-1. The dichromate adsorption capacity of chitosan is 8.3 mg L-1, while that of SDS-chitosan is 9.7 mg L-1. In addition, the adsorption of dichromate by chitosan and SDS-chitosan is well-fitted by the Langmuir and Freundlich models while the adsorption kinetics is best fitted by the pseudo-second-order kinetic model.