Conferencia dictada por la Dra Noemi Zaritzky: The use of wastes from the fishing industry for the production of a biopolymer with applications in water treatment

NOEMI ZARITZKY , JIMENA DIMA

Buenos Aires

Workshop; II Workshop on Bio-degradable Polymers and Biocomposites, III Workshop BIOPURFIL, Bio-based Polyurethane Composites with Natural Fillers; 2015

In the coastline of Patagonia-Argentina, seafood processing industry discards large amounts of crustaceans shellfish wastes; exoskeletons are converted in a solid residue, which accumulate in landfills becoming an environmental pollutant. However these residues contain chitin. Chitosan (CH) is obtained by the derivation of chitin and represents an attractive alternative to other biomaterials because of its physico-chemical characteristics, and excellent chelation behavior. In the last years the production of chitosan micro/nanoparticles (MCH) are being investigated in different scientific areas as carriers of drugs, antifungal and antibacterial agents, metal bioadsorbent , among others Water contamination with heavy metals is a critical problem because metals tend to persist and accumulate in the environment. Cr (VI) is a metal toxic to living systems and must be removed from wastewater before it can be discharged. The permissible limit is 0.1 mg/L. Chitosan (CH), has been used for remove chromium from aqueous solutions. The adsorption of a metal ion on CH depends strongly on the pH of the solution. In recent years, research has been performed on novel adsorbents to maximize their adsorptive capacity; chemical and physical modifications of CH have been used to increase the stability of the polymer and to improve its functionality . The objectives of the present dissertation are: a) to describe the process for obtaining chitosan particles (CH) from seafood processing wastes, b) to synthesize micro/ nanoparticles combining chitosan dissolved in acid solution with tripolyphosphate (TPP) as the crosslinking agent; c ) to characterize MCH by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), FTIR, particle size distribution and zeta potential. d) to determine the effect of pH and different concentrations of TPP and chitosan solutions on the optimization of the MCH production. e) to analyze the performance of MCH and CH particles, in the adsorption process of Cr (IV) at different pH values, initial chromium concentrations and contact times; f) to model mathematically the equilibrium isotherms and adsorption kinetics.