Preparation and Evaluation of Chitin Derivatives and Their Utilization for Waste-water Treatement

The Chitin Thiocarbonate-Fe(II)-H2O2 redox initiator system was investigated for the graft copolymerization of acrylonitrile(AN) and acrylic acid(AA) monomers onto chitin powder. The reactions with vinyl monomers onto chitin were carried out under various the graft copolymerization conditions to elucidate the polymerization behavior in terms of graft yield. Reactions of chitin-acrylonitrile graft copolymer with hydroxyl amine hydrochloride and those with sodium hydroxide were conducted in order to obtain chitin-(amidoxime-co-acrylonitrile) and chitin-(acrylate-co-acrylamide) graft copolymers, respectively. The reaction efficiency was observed to depend on the alkali concentration, time, temperature, and the reactant concentrations. The prepared chitin derivatives were evaluated to find potential applications for use in wastewater treatments for adsorption and desorption of heavy metal ions as well as acidic and basic dyes.