Abstract
A new chitosan derivative, N-guanidinium chitosan acetate, has been synthesized by direct guanylation of chitosan by cyanamide in presence of scandium(III) triflate under mild acidic condition. Starting from this material, N-guanidinium chitosan/silica microhybrids were prepared via a sol gel method using 3-glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane as silica precursor. Both N-guanidinium chitosan and the N-guanidinium chitosan/silica hybrid were characterized by a range of analytical techniques such as 29Si/13C solid state NMR, FT-IR, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetry and elemental analysis. The characterization of the chitosan/silica hybrid indicated that this material is a highly hydrophilic nanocomposite material containing an organic core and a highly condensed silica shell. The N-guanidinium chitosan/silica microhybrids display excellent adsorption properties for anionic dyes such as methyl orange (MO) with very high capacities up to 917 mg/g. The fixation of MO as anionic dye was investigated in detail as a function of contact time, pH and the MO concentration. The adsorption kinetics of MO on N-guanidinium chitosan/silica microhybrids was more accurately described by pseudo second-order model. Langmuir isotherm model exhibited a better fit with adsorption data than Freundlich isotherm model. This work opens new possibilities for using N-guanidinium chitosan as a reusable adsorbent for water purification.