Lanthanum hydroxides modified poly(epichlorohydrin)-ethylenediamine composites for highly efficient phosphate removal and bacteria disinfection

Since environmental issues become more intense, the effective elimination of phosphate from water has received increasing attention. In this study, a bi-functional composite, La(OH)(3) loaded poly(epichlorohydrin)-ethylenediamine (PEE@La), was fabricated from La-compound and poly(epichlorohydrin)-ethylenediamine (PEE) through a simple chemical synthesis, and its performance on phosphate removal and bacteria disinfection was systematically evaluated. In terms of adsorption, PEE@La-100 % exhibits a maximum capacity with PO43- of 186.6 mg g(-1), and the behavior of PEE@La-100 % fits well with Langmuir model and Pseudo second-order kinetic, implying that this process should be a monolayer and chemical adsorption. In addition, PEE@La-100 % maintained a high removal rate in a wide pH range, and the competitive anions had little effect on adsorption of phosphate except for sulfate. Compared to some adsorbents reported in pervious papers, PEE@La-100 % exhibits a larger adsorption capacity and a wider application. The analysis results of various characterization such as XPS, XRD and FT-IR showed that both electrostatic attraction and chemical bonding played an important role in adsorption. Furthermore, PEE@La-100 % also exhibited excellent inhibition on the growth of E.coli, which has rarely been reported before. Overall, this work provides a novel insight in the research of bi-functional composite for both phosphate adsorption and bacterial inhibition with large adsorption capacity and wide application.