Fabrication of Polymeric Chitosan-g-P (ITA-co-AM) Nanocomposite Using Copolymerization and Application to Removal Metformin Drug from Aqueous Solution

This study involved the synthesis of a new polymer hydrogel cross-linked through free radical copolymerization of chitosan, itaconic acid, and acrylamide (AM) to be chitosan-g-P (ITA-co-AM) hydrogel. The hydrogel was characterized by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The metformin (MET) drug was removed from an aqueous solution using chitosan-g-P (ITA-co-AM) hydrogel. The factors influencing adsorption, such as adsorbent dose, contact time, concentration, and solution pH, were examined. These hydrogel composites were engineered to enable effective MET drug adsorption from wastewater. The adsorption of chitosan-g-P (ITA-co-AM) hydrogel was clarified by the kinetics process of the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order and the isotherm analysis that was performed by the models (Langmuir, Temkin, and Freundlich). The results showed that the removal of drug by hydrogel closely applies to the Langmuir model with a correlation coefficient (R2 =0.998) and the maximum removal adsorption is 89.44% (20 mg/g at 25 °C). The correlation coefficient (R2 = 0.9905) of the pseudo-second-order model fit well with metformin drug the removal procedure was a multilayer process under the control of physisorption, according to adsorption kinetics. Moreover, after six cycles adsorption-desorption, the chitosan-g-P (ITA-co-AM) hydrogel has an adsorption efficiency of 70.88%. As a result, chitosan-g-P (ITA-co-AM) hydrogel is suitable for eliminating toxic drug contaminants.