writer：Facui Yang, Qingmin Yang, Mengmeng Chen, Chunyan Luo, Weixing Chen, Peng Yang
keywords：Protein， adsorption，heavy metal ions ，water treatment
source：期刊
Issue time：2021年

Biomass materials have gained considerable attention as sustainable and renewable resources for the production of adsorbents. However, there remain significant challenges to their application scale-up, such as complex production or processing methods, poor stability, high cost, and low adsorption capacity. Herein, we report an inexpensive environmentally friendly protein-polysaccharide complex that exhibits excellent removal efficiency of toxic metal ions. Through amyloid-like coacervation, a bovine serum albumin (BSA) and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) complex, which is a potent toxic metal ion sequester, can be formed within 1 min. The adsorbent is effective for the simultaneous removal of multiple toxic metal ions species (Hg2+, Cr3+, Pb2+, Cd2+, As3+, Ni2+, and Co2+) and radioactive elements (uranium) from tap water (at <1 ppm) in 10 min, meeting World Health Organization limits. Moreover, the biomass adsorbent can efficiently capture uranium ions (188.2 mg/g) from simulated seawater, which is 4.5 times higher than that achievable with pristine activated carbon, at a 13–360-fold cost reduction. The biomass material offers noticeable scale-up advantages because of its low cost, easy regeneration, and good toxic metal ion removal efficiency from multi-element toxic metal aqueous solutions.