Acrylamide grafted chitosan based ion imprinted polymer for the recovery of cadmium from nickel-cadmium battery waste

Spent nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries are classified as hazardous waste due to the presence of toxic cadmium (Cd). Sustainable solution to this problem can be adoption of resource recovery methods for the reuse of Cd. This has been attempted in the present work using the biopolymer chitosan having inherent affinity for metals. Stability of chitosan in acidic medium was improved by grafting it with a suitable grafting agent and cross-linking. Further, it was used for the synthesis of acrylamide grafted chitosan based Cd ion imprinted polymer (CdIIP) using Cd as template and epichlorohydrin (EPI) as crosslinker for the selective recovery of Cd. Density functional theory (DFT) confirmed acrylamide as the best grafting agent with Delta G of -17.98 Kcal/mol for the acrylamide grafted chitosan. FTIR confirmed the grafting of acrylamide on chitosan as well as successful synthesis of CdIIP. EPI proved to be a better crosslinking agent as compared to glutaraldehyde (GLA) for CdIIP as confirmed by EDS. Adsorption of Cd on CdIIP was influenced by pH, time, initial Cd concentration and CdIIP dose. The kinetic data fitted well to pseudo-second-order equation than first order with R-2 equals to 0.997. The monolayer adsorption capacity for Cd (167 mg/g) calculated using Langmuir isotherm model was in close approximation to the experimental adsorption capacity of 152 +/- 3 mg/g. The thermodynamic data confirmed exothermic and spontaneous nature of adsorption. 84.3% of Cd could be recovered by CdIIP from the acidic leachate of the Ni-Cd battery waste. CdIIP could be effectively reused for five cycles.