Selective capture of lanthanum and lead cations over biomass-derived ion-imprinted biomacromolecule adsorbents

Selective and ultrasorption materials are of practical significance in the fields of rare earth element (REE) capturing and heavy metal (HM) remediation. Here, we exploited ion-imprinted engineering, which was based on a watermelon-inspired strategy. This type of engineering was first coupled with renewable alginate biomacromolecules. The imprinted target metal ions could be optionally changed and recovered for different purposes. La and Pb cations were selected as the representatives for REE and HM to demonstrate the tunable adaption. Sodium alginate is cost-effective and environment-friendly biomass and is thus frequently used as a carbon source or matrix in materials science. Some other high-performance metal-incorporated functional materials for catalysis and microwave shielding might also be synthesized facilely under our engineering. Metal sources for the abovementioned composites might be selectively extracted from natural metal-bearing solution or industrial wastewater by selecting specific target metals. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.