Radiation Grafting of Peanut Shell Cellulose- Acrylamide Monomer for Production of Hydrogel to be used in Industrial Wastewater Treatment

Many efforts have been made to isolate cellulose from various biomass sources. Recently, particular attention has been paid to producing pollutant adsorbents from cellulosic polymers due to their advantages of being abundant, rapidly renewable, and biodegradable in nature. Current research is based on modification of peanut shell cellulose through radiation graft copolymerization with acrylamide monomer for the synthesis of hydrogel and it can be used a waste water absorber. Monomer ratio was varied from 1:1 up to 1:2, and various radiation doses (10-30 kGy) were applied for grafting. The structures and properties of the original cellulose and the prepared grafted cellulose-acrylamide were characterized using different analytical tools such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and fourier transformed infrared spectrometer analysis (FTIR). The effect of radiation dose and monomer concentration on grafting efficiency and swelling degree were also studied. The grafting efficiency increased with the increasing in radiation dose which was found to be inversely proportional to swelling degree. The increasing in monomer concentration was directly proportional to the grafting efficiency, however, led to decreasing in swelling degree. The adsorption capacity of hydrogels toward heavy metals and dye has been investigated. The maximum adsorption capacity and removal of hydrogel for Pb were 14 mg/g and 64 %. The removal of hydrogel for dye was 37 %. This study provides a solution to the discharge of different pollutants from wastewater