PROJECT SUMMARY
Project financially supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, program PN-III-P2-2.1_PED
Project code: PN-III-P2-2.1-PED - 2016-0456
Contracting agency: UEFISCDI
Contract number 105PED/2017
Magnetic composite particulate adsorbents offer advantages over the traditional ones due to facile separation from the aqueous phase. Their efficient removal in magnetic field, followed by regeneration and reuse decreases the overall water treatment cost by eliminating time and energy required for filtration/centrifugation processes, while providing the possibility to increase surface area and maximize adsorption capacity.
A relatively simple procedure to produce magnetite/chitosan composite particles has been developed and proven as a concept (TRL3) in small scale by our team and the novel material has demonstrated superior adsorption properties towards some heavy metal ions compared to similar products described in the literature. For increasing the technology readiness level, a laboratory validation step is necessary (TLR 4) and it is proposed in this project.
The novelty of the proposal consists in an integrated approach to investigate structure property relationship in order to compensate for the variability of the biopolymer and ensure product reproducibility. This project aims to develop and validate in laboratory an innovative cost-effective technology optimized in large scale for producing composite magnetic adsorbents using nontoxic, biodegradable, and renewable components (iron oxide and chitosan) and to demonstrate their application in a magnetically aided wastewater treatment for removing heavy metal ions or dyes.