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International Conference on

Recent Trends in Environmental Sustainability

ESCON22/NMsB/24
A novel biopolymeric composite of inulin and chitosan co-precipitated with calcium
hydroxyapatite (HAp) for the removal of metal ions from water

Zahida Zia *1,2
1 University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
2 COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus, Pakistan
Correspondence: zahida@ciitvehari.edu.pk

Abstract
Industrial discharges without suitable controls or water treatment procedures in places can
pollute water systems with heavy metal ions. These non-degradable and highly toxic chemical
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entities such as Cd and Pb ions and their dissolution in water create a serious threat to the
food chain. Industrial by-products and low-cost agricultural material could be a source of to
synthesise eco-friendly adsorbents to remove heavy metals from water. Chitosan and inulin
are biopolymers, which can be explored for their potential to remove heavy metal ions from
water. The chemical composition and chelation properties of chitosan and inulin has been
reported in literature which make them a promising material to apply in water treatment
systems for the removal of heavy metal ions.

In the present study, chitosan, and inulin composite (with other minerals) was considered as a
low-cost adsorbent and was synthesized by simple chemical precipitation methods and
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analysed for its role in heavy metal (Pb and Cd ) removal from synthetic water. The other
material that the chitosan and inulin were coprecipitated with included hydroxyapatite (HAp),
which is an inorganic mineral and extensively been used as an effective material to remove
metal ions. The characterization of the synthesised composite (CH/HAp/Inulin) was done by
using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and powder X-
ray diffraction (p-XRD). In this study, the effect of different parameters such as adsorbent dose,
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metal ion concentration, pH, and contact time on Pb and Cd removal was measured via a
series of batch experiments. Initial metal ion concentrations of 5-50 ppm and initial pH values
in solution ranging from 4.5 to 5.0 were used. In general, the adsorption behaviour was found
to be of the Langmuir type adsorption and the adsorption kinetics to be pseudo second order in
agreement with earlier work conducted by other researchers. The experimental results have
shown that the chitosan/HAp/Inulin composite performed favourably with removal efficiencies
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for Pb and Cd ion exceeding 80%.
Keywords: insulin, heavy metals, mineral, adsorbents

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus

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