Functionalization of aluminum surfaces for cation interaction

CECILIA DANIELA COSTA; MARÍA CLAUDIA MARCHI; VIRGINIA DIZ; GRACIELA GONZÁLEZ

Simposio; Exploring the Frontiers of Chemistry: Challenges for the 21st Century; 2019

Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales - UBA

Heavy metals are common contaminants in water. These metals come from effluents from mining, metal plating (electroplating) and electronics, among others. Pollution of water sources by heavy metals represents a serious environmental problem due to their toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation. For this reason, it is necessary to obtain information about the concentration of heavy metals in various matrices, and furthermore, to design removal processes in industrial process waters, to ensure the conditions in which they reach the environment. It is essential that the construction of the systems for this purpose has a low environmental impact. In this work aluminum meshes are used as support, which are functionalized from cellulose acetate coatings containing magnetite@cellulose nanoparticles1. On the other hand, copper has been chosen as a cation model system because of its relevance in the electronics and electroplating industry.Several studies suggest that many of the nanostructured metal oxides (OMNs), including nanometric ferric oxides, exhibit a very favorable adsorption of heavy metals in terms of high capacity and selectivity2,3. The size, shape and functionalization of OMNs are important factors in their adsorption performance. Aluminum meshes have been modified in different proportions (10: 2.5 and 5: 0.5)4 with cellulose acetate (30,000Da and 50,000Da) and magnetite nanoparticles, with and without cellulose coating. The resulting surfaces have been characterized by FTIR, SEM and DRX and their electrochemical behavior was analyzed. The results suggest that the interaction between copper and surface is dependent on the OMNS environment since higher cathodic currents are obtained for the system in which the nanoparticles are functionalized with cellulose. There is also an increase in the signal with a higher proportion of nanoparticles and a better reproducibility when using the polymer with the higher molecular weight.This system is a promising platform oriented to determination of metals in situ, heavy metal removal systems and treatment of industrial effluents.