Chitosan microspheres prepared by membrane emulsification for chromium removal from aqueous solutions

Chitosan is naturally abundant biopolymer that could be used as chelating sorbent for removal of metal ions from aqueous solutions. In this study the uniform-sized chitosan microspheres and their modified derivatives were prepared by using the one stage membrane emulsification process. The obtained sorbents were used for removal of chromium VI ions. The sorption evaluation was carried out at different initial ion concentrations and allowed to fit the experimental data to Langmuir isotherm in the case of unmodified materials and to Freundlich isotherm in the case of modified microspheres. The highest sorption towards chromium has been shown by unmodified chitosan with medium molecular weight. The calculated maximum sorption capacity for this polymer was found to be 1.6 mmol/g.