Abstract
Background: Cellulose polymers with multidentate chelating functionalities that have high efficiency for toxic metal
ions present in water were designed, synthesized, and analyzed. The synthesis was carried out by reacting microcrystalline
cellulose extracted from the solid waste of the olive industry with tert-Butyl acetoacetate (Cell-AA), produced
cellulose with β-ketoester functionality was then reacted with aniline and the amino acid glycine to produce Cell-
β-AN and Cell-β-GL, respectively.
Results: The adsorption efficiency of the three polymers toward Pb(II) and various toxic metal ions present in sewage
was evaluated as a function of adsorbent dose, time, temperature, pH value, and initial ion concentration to determine
optimum adsorption conditions. The three polymers showed excellent efficiency toward about 20 metal ions
present in a sewage sample collected from the sewer. The adsorption process follows the Langmuir adsorption isotherm
model with a second-order of adsorption rate, the calculated qe values (2.675, 15.252, 20.856 mg/g) were close
to the experimental qe values (2.133, 13.91, 18.786 mg/g) for the three polymers Cell-AA, Cell-β-AG and Cell-β-AN,
respectively. Molecular Dynamic (MD) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations were performed on the three polymers complexed
with Pb(II).
Conclusion: The waste material of the olive industry was used as a precursor for making the target cellulose
polymers with β-Amino Ester Pendant Group. The polymer was characterized by SEM, proton NMR, TGA, and FT-IR
spectroscopy. The efficacy of adsorption was quantitative for metal ions present in a real sample of wastewater and
the efficiency didn’t drop even after 7 cycles of use. The results indicate the existence of strong complexation. The
thermodynamic study results showed a spontaneous bonding between of Pb(II) and the polymers pendant groups
expressed by the negative value of the Gibbs free energy.

Title

BMC

Publisher

Springer

Publisher Country

Germany

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

None

Publication Type

Both (Printed and Online)

Volume

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Year

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Pages

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