Treatment of Textile Wastewater using Chitosan and Chitosan Grafted Acrylamide by Microwave Synthesis

Polymeric flocculants based on single chitosan and polyacrylamide grafted chitosan (Ch-g-PAM) have been successfully synthesized via microwave initiated method. Under optimal grafting conditions, 30.4% grafting has been observed in case of the microwave irradiation with exposed time, 76s and power, 640MW (80% from full power). The synthesized graft copolymers have been characterized by FTIR spectroscopy. Acidic medium was the best condition for flocculation with optimum pH of 3 and 4 using Ch-g-PAM and Chitosan, respectively. The longer the settling time, the better the flocculation performance as long as the flocs did not break. 60-90 minutes was the best settling time with optimum dosage of 0.1 g for both flocculants. Grafted chitosan with PAM showed the best result in removing the contaminants compared to single chitosan.