Synthesis of New Hydrogels Involving Acrylic Acid and Acrylamide Grafted Agar-Agar and Their Application in the Removal of Cationic Dyes from Wastewater
Amina Betraoui,
Nesrinne Seddiki,
Rafika Souag,
Nabila Guerfi,
Abdelhabib Semlali,
Taieb Aouak,
Djamel Aliouche
Affiliations
Amina Betraoui
Laboratory of Polymers Treatment and Forming, F.S.I., M’Hamed Bougara University, Boumerdes 35000, Algeria
Nesrinne Seddiki
Laboratory of Polymers Treatment and Forming, F.S.I., M’Hamed Bougara University, Boumerdes 35000, Algeria
Rafika Souag
Research Unit, Materials, Processes and Environment (URMPE), University of Boumerdes, Boumerdes 35000, Algeria
Nabila Guerfi
Centre de Recherche en Technologiedes Semi-Conducteurs pour l’Energétique (CRTSE), 02 Bd Frantz Fanon BP140, 7 Merveilles, Algiers 16038, Algeria
Abdelhabib Semlali
Groupe de Recherche en Écologie Buccale, Faculté de Médecine Dentaire, Université Laval, Quebec City, QC G1V 0A6, Canada
Taieb Aouak
Chemistry Department, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Djamel Aliouche
Laboratory of Polymers Treatment and Forming, F.S.I., M’Hamed Bougara University, Boumerdes 35000, Algeria
Polyacrylic Acid grafted Agar-agar (AAc-graf-Agar), and polyacrylamide grafted Agar-Agar (AAm-graf-Agar) have been synthesised by free radical polymerisation route initiated by ammonium peroxodisulphate (APS), the grafted polymers were characterised by FTIR, TGA and SEM methods. The swelling properties were studied in deionised water and saline solution at room temperature. The prepared hydrogels were examined by removing cationic methylene blue (MB) dye from the aqueous solution, in which the adsorption kinetics and isotherms models were also investigated. It was found that the pseudo-second-order and Langmuir equations are the most suitable for the different sorption processes. The maximum dye adsorption capacity was 1035.96 mg∙g−1 for AAc-graf-Agar in pH medium 12 and 1015.7 mg∙g−1 for AAm-graf-Agar in neutral pH medium. This indicates that the AAc-graf-Agar hydrogel could be an excellent adsorbent for removing MB from aqueous solutions.
