Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860
DOI 10.1007/s10570-013-9875-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Chemically modified kapok fiber for fast adsorption of Pb2+,
Cd2+, Cu2+ from aqueous solution
Chunting Duan • Ning Zhao • Xiaolan Yu •
Xiaoyan Zhang • Jian Xu
Received: 28 October 2012 / Accepted: 28 January 2013 / Published online: 9 February 2013
Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Kapok fiber, a natural hollow fiber with
thin shell and large cavity, has rarely been used as
adsorbent for heavy metal ions. In this paper, kapok
fibers were modified with diethylenetriamine pentaa-
cetic acid (DTPA) after hydrophilicity treatment. The
adsorption behavior of the resultant kapok-DTPA
influenced by pH, adsorption time and initial concen-
tration of metal ion was investigated. The results
demonstrate that adsorption equilibrium was reached
within 2 min for Pb2? and Cd2?. Adsorption kinetics
showed that the adsorption rate was well fitted by
pseudo-second-order rate model. The adsorption iso-
therms were studied, and the best fit was obtained
in the Langmuir model. The maximum adsorption
capacities of kapok-DTPA were 310.6 mg g-1 for
Pb2?, 163.7 mg g-1 for Cd2?, 101.0 mg g-1 for
Cu2?, respectively. After eight desorption and
re-adsorption loops, the lost adsorption capacities for
Pb2? and Cu2? were less than 10 %. Because of the
C. Duan  N. Zhao (&)  X. Yu  X. Zhang  J. Xu (&)
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences,
Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry,
Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100190, People’s Republic of China
e-mail: zhaoning@iccas.ac.cn
J. Xu
e-mail: jxu@iccas.ac.cn
C. Duan
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100049, People’s Republic of China
large specific area derived from the hollow fiber
structure, kapok-DTPA exhibited much better adsorp-
tion capacity compared with many other reported
adsorbents based on natural materials.
Keywords Kapok fiber  Chemical modification 
Fast adsorption  Regeneration
Introduction
Heavy metal pollution in water is an important issue of
water pollution. Heavy metal pollution not only
influences the quality of the water body, but also
affects the production and quality of the crops and
aquatic products, and threatens the health and life of
animals and human beings through the food chain
(Cheng 2003). Due to harmful effects of heavy metal
ions pollution in water, there is a pressing need to find
efficient methods to combat this kind of pollution.
Many approaches for the removal of heavy metal ions
from aqueous solution have been carried out, such as
ion exchange, reverse osmosis, adsorption, complexa-
tion/sequestration and precipitation-neutralization.
Adsorption is an efficient method that was extensively
used for the removal of heavy metal ions from
household and industrial waste water (Yin et al.
2008). Activated carbon (Kula et al. 2008), graphene
(Gao et al. 2011), clay (Ozdes et al. 2011), oxides (Shi
et al. 2011) and polymeric material (Jiang et al. 2012;
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Neghlani et al. 2011) have been utilized as adsorbents.
However, most of these materials are non-renewable
or non-biodegradable and may cause secondary
pollution.
Recently, natural materials have attracted increas-
ing research interest as adsorbents for heavy metals
owing to their renewable and biodegradable proper-
ties. Gil and coworkers (Gurgel et al. 2008a, b; Júnior
et al. 2009; Karnitz et al. 2007) modified sugarcane
bagasse and cellulose with different chelating reagents
and obtained adsorbents with good adsorption perfor-
mance. Li and coworkers (Liu et al. 2010) modified
peanut shell with epichlorohydrin and ethylenedia-
mine to adsorb Hg2? and Cd2?. Starch has been
modified with dialdehyde o-phenylenediamine and
dialdehyde aminothiazole to prepare different adsor-
bents (Yin et al. 2008; Zhao et al. 2010). Fir sawdust
lignocellulose was functionalized by copolymeriza-
tion with N-vinylpyrrolidone, and its adsorption
capacity for tea catechins was improved (Ye et al.
2010). Wheat straw has been treated with citric acid
and the adsorption properties of copper ion and
methylene blue were investigated (Han et al. 2010).
Groundnut shell and sawdust were assessed for heavy
metal ions adsorption before and after being loaded
with dye (Shukla and Pai 2005). Besides chemical
modification, some natural materials can be used as
adsorbents directly without any treatment. For exam-
ple, juniper bark and wood have the ability of
adsorbing cadmium ions due to the carboxyl groups
on the surface (Shin et al. 2007), and banana peel
(Castro et al. 2011) can extract lead and copper ions
from water because of its carboxylic and amine
groups. The removal of copper and lead ions in water
by biodegradable chitosan-coated sand has been
reported (Wan et al. 2010). Pine cone powder was
demonstrated for its biosorption of lead ions (Ofomaja
and Naidoo 2010), and Babu et al. (Gupta and Babu
2009) used sawdust as an adsorbent to remove Cr(VI)
from aqueous solutions. Chitin, as the second most
abundant natural polymer, can also be used for
absorption with or without modification (Bhatnagar
and Sillanpaa 2009; Karthikeyan et al. 2005; Tang
et al. 2012). Zhang’s group prepared biodegradable
cellulose/chitin beads, which possessed higher heavy
metals uptake capacity than pure chitin flakes (Zhou
et al. 2004, 2005). Reusable Fe3O4/chitosan/PAA
composite particles showed high adsorption capacity
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Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860
in adsorbing copper ion(II) (Zhang et al. 2012).
Composite materials based on cellulose and cellulose
acetate are also found to be useful in the adsorption of
CuCl2 from ethanol (Magosso et al. 2012).
In this study, we prepared adsorbents based on
kapok fiber. Kapok fiber is a natural fiber presenting a
large hollow structure. The volume porosity is more
than 90 % (Hori et al. 2000). Due to its hydrophobic-
oleophilic characteristic, homogeneous hollow tube
shape and low density, kapok fiber has been widely
used as fiberfill in pillows, oil sorbent (Abdullah et al.
2010; Khan et al. 2004; Lim and Huang 2007b), oil/
water separator (Huang and Lim 2006; Lim and Huang
2006, 2007a), reinforcement (Mwaikambo and Ansell
2002) and buoyancy materials (Zhang et al. 2013).
However, kapok fibers are rarely used as adsorbents
for heavy metal ions. Compared with other natural
fibers, the large hollow structure is desirable for the
application as absorbents. In this publication, kapok
fibers were chemically modified with diethylenetria-
mine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) to remove metal ions
from aqueous solutions. The influences of pH, adsorp-
tion time and initial concentration of metal ion in the
adsorption behavior were investigated. In control
experiment, absorbent cotton was treated under sim-
ilar conditions. The higher adsorption quantity and
shorter equilibrium time of kapok fibers than that of
the cotton indicate the advantage of the hollow fiber
structure as adsorbents. Regeneration tests were also
carried out to evaluate the practical utility.
Experimental section
Materials
The kapok fibers used were produced in Sichuan
province of China. Diethylenetriamine pentaacetic
acid (DTPA, Aladdin-reagent) was used without
further purification. Absorbent cotton, acetic anhy-
dride, pentasodium DTPA, N,N0 -dimethyl formamide
(DMF), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), acetone, diethyl
ether, pyridine, sodium hydrogen carbonate (NaHCO3),
sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), ethanol, dichlorometh-
ane, copper sulfate (CuSO4), lead nitrate (Pb(NO3)2),
cadmium chloride (CdCl2) and nitric acid (65–68 wt%)
were purchased from local chemical suppliers and used
without any treatment.
Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860
Synthesis of DTPA anhydride
DTPA anhydride was synthesized following the
method described elsewhere (Júnior et al. 2009).
DTPA (20 g) was suspended in anhydrous pyridine
(40 mL), then acetic anhydride (25 mL) was added
dropwise. With strong mechanical stirring, the mix-
ture was heated and kept at 65 °C for 24 h. The solid
product was filtered, washed with acetic anhydride,
diethyl ether, and dried under vacuum at 60 °C for 2 h.
Preparation of kapok-DTPA and cotton-DTPA
Kapok fibers were cut to a length of 50–100 lm by a
commercially available juice extractor. The resultant
short fibers were washed thoroughly with dichloro-
methane to remove the botanic wax. 1.5 g of the short
and clean kapok fibers was dispersed into 200 mL
NaOH aqueous solution (5 M) at room temperature
and stirred for 24 h. Then the fibers were filtered, and
washed with plenty of deionized water, ethanol and
acetone. After being dried at 60 °C for 3 h, mercerized
kapok fiber (Mkapok) was obtained. Mkapok (4.6 g)
and DTPA anhydride (13.2 g) were suspended in
DMF (100 mL), and the mixture was stirred at 75 °C
for 20 h. Then the fibers were filtered, and washed
with DMF, deionized water, saturated sodium bicar-
bonate solution, deionized water, ethanol 95 %,
acetone, and followed by drying at 80 °C for 1 h.
The product was named as kapok-DTPA.
Absorbent cotton fibers were also cut short by the
juice extractor and then treated by a similar procedure
mentioned above. Mercerized cotton was termed as
Mcotton, and DTPA modified cotton was labeled as
cotton-DTPA.
Impregnation and ester hydrolysis experiments
Impregnation experiment was carried out as follows:
1.0 g Mkapok was added into pentasodium DTPA
aqueous solution (4.1 g pentasodium DTPA being
dissolved in 100 mL water), and the mixture was
stirred at room temperature for 20 h. Then the fibers
were filtered, and washed with deionized water,
ethanol 95 %, acetone, and followed by drying at
80 °C for 1 h. The product was named as impregnated
kapok.
General procedure for ester hydrolysis of kapok-
DTPA: a mixture of 0.3 g kapok-DTPA in the solution
851
of sodium hydroxide 5 % (7.2 mL) in ethanol (50 mL)
was stirred under reflux for 2 h. Then the fibers were
filtered, and washed with sodium hydroxide aqueous
solution (5 %), deionized water, ethanol, acetone, and
followed by drying at 80 °C for 1 h. The obtained
product was EH-kapok.
Adsorption and regeneration experiments
Adsorbents were added to different metal ions solu-
tions at a dosage of 1.0 g L-1 for Cd2? and Cu2?,
0.8 g L-1 for Pb2?, separately. Initial pH value of the
solution was calibrated using HNO3 and NaOH
solutions. The adsorption experiments were carried
out at room temperature. The adsorption capacity qe
(mg g-1) was calculated according to the equation:
ðc0  ce ÞV
qe ¼ ; ð1Þ
m
where c0 and ce are the initial and equilibrium metal
ions concentration (mg L-1), respectively. V is the
volume of metal ion solution, and m is the mass of
adsorbent used for adsorption experiment.
Kinetic experiments of metal ion adsorption were
performed to determine the adsorption equilibrium
time at fixed concentrations (300 mg L-1 for Pb2?;
200 mg L-1 for Cd2?; 200 mg L-1 for Cu2?), at pH
value of 4.5. Experiments of pH study were carried out
to determine the effect of pH on metal ion adsorption.
Concentrations of metal ions were 300 mg L-1 for
Pb2?, 200 mg L-1 for Cd2?, 200 mg L-1 for Cu2?.
The reaction time for each ion was 10 min. For
adsorption isotherms, the concentrations were set from
50 to 650 mg L-1 for Cu2?, 50 to 750 mg L-1 for
Cd2? and Pb2?, at pH value of 4.5. The reaction time
was 10 min.
The adsorption experiments for cotton-DTPA are
carried out in the same way as for kapok-DTPA.
Used kapok-DTPA was dealt with 1 M HCl
solution for regeneration. After being washed for 3
times, no metal ion was detected in the filtrate,
indicating complete desorption. Then it was reem-
ployed in metal ion removal.
Characterization
The morphology of the fibers was studied by JSM-
6700F field emission scanning electron microscopy.
Specific surface area and porosity were measured by
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852
Scheme 1 Synthesis route of kapok-DTPA
AutoPore IV 9500 mercury porosimetry. Infrared
spectra were obtained from FT-IR spectrophotometer
of BRUKER TENSOR 27. Elemental content was
analyzed by Flash EA1112. The concentrations
of metal ions were measured using a Varian
710-ES inductively coupled plasma atomic emission
spectroscopy.
Results and discussion
Preparation of kapok-DTPA and cotton-DTPA
The synthesis route of kapok-DTPA is shown in
Scheme 1. The main components of kapok are cellu-
lose and lignin, and a small amount of hemicelluloses
is also contained. Lignin was removed after treatment
with NaOH solution, and part of hydroxyls in cellulose
turned to hydroxyl-sodium.
Kapok fiber is very light and has excellent buoy-
ancy performance. The fibers floated on the water
Fig. 1 Photographs of the original kapok (a), the washed kapok (b), Mkapok (c) in water and kapok-DTPA (d) in CuSO4 solution
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Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860
because of the hydrophobic botanic wax on the surface
(Fig. 1a). After being washed thoroughly with dichlo-
romethane to remove the botanic wax, the fibers
became hydrophilic and can be dispersed well in water
(Fig. 1b). Treatment with NaOH solution and modi-
fication with DTPA improved the hydrophilicity of the
fibers, so both Mkapok and kapok-DTPA dispersed
even better than the washed kapok (Fig. 1c, d). The
hydrophilicity and dispersibility of Kapok-DTPA
promise fully contact with heavy metal in the adsorp-
tion process.
Before the modification, most of the kapok fibers
were 50–100 lm in length, 20–30 lm in diameter
(Fig. 2a), and with a cylindrical microtube shape
(Fig. 2b). After treatment with NaOH solution, kapok
fibers were wrinkled but the hollow structure remained
(Fig. 2c). From the enlarged image we can see the
microtube shrink a little and the thickness of the wall
increases from 0.7 to 1–2 lm (Fig. 2d). In contrast,
cotton fibers have a similar diameter but without
hollow structure, and the ends are always solid with
irregular shape (Fig. 2e). The morphology of the cotton
fiber does not show obvious change before and after the
treatment with NaOH, as exhibited in Fig. 2e, f.
In addition, specific surface area and porosity of
Mkapok and Mcotton were measured by mercury
porosimetry. Specific surface area and porosity were
3.17 m2 g-1 and 89.9 % for Mkapok, 0.96 m2 g-1
and 84.3 % for Mcotton, respectively. Both from the
SEM and mercury porosimetry results, one can judge
that the hollow structure and thin shell endow Mkapok
Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860 853

Fig. 2 SEM images of

kapok fiber (a, b), Mkapok
(c, d), cotton before (e) and
after (f) modification. The
insets in e and f are
magnified images to show
the cross section of the
cotton fiber

larger specific surface area and higher porosity than
that of Mcotton. These differences may lead to
different contents of DTPA introduced into kapok
and cotton fibers, which will further influence the
adsorption capacities.
The elemental analysis results are summarized in
Table 1. Nitrogen content was used to estimate the
content of DTPA (CDTPA) in the modified fibers,
following the equation:
103  CðNÞ
CDTPA ðmmol=gÞ ¼ ð2Þ
3  MðNÞ
The calculated content of DTPA in kapok-DTPA is
1.1 mmol g-1, which is larger than that of 0.8 mmol g-1
for cotton-DTPA. This difference can mainly be
ascribed to the different specific surface area and
porosity of Mkapok and Mcotton. The hollow struc-
ture with open ends of kapok makes Mkapok has more
specific surface area available to be reacted with
DTPA, compared with that of solid cotton fiber.
FT-IR characterization of kapok-DTPA
As depicted in Fig. 3, the band at 1,740 cm-1
corresponding to –C=O vibration disappears for the
Mkapok compared with the spectrum of kapok,
suggesting that lignin in kapok has been removed
after treatment with NaOH. The reappearance of the

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854 Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860

Table 1 The content of C, H, N in different materials, chemical bond. After impregnated with pentasodium
obtained from elemental analysis, and the calculated content of DTPA, impregnated kapok showed no band at
grafted DTPA
1,740 cm-1 in FT-IR spectrum (Fig. 3b). It turned
Material C (wt%) H (wt%) N (wt%) CDTPA out that no pentasodium DTPA molecular was intro-
(mmol g-1) duced to Mkapok after chemical impregnation.
Kapok 44.5 6.2 0.6 – In adsorbent material of kapok-DTPA, cellulose
Mkapok 45.4 6.4 \0.3 – was combined with DTPA by ester bond. After ester
Kapok-DTPA 41.3 5.5 4.5 1.1 hydrolysis procedure, ester bond was broken, resulting
Mcotton 42.0 5.9 \0.3 –
in no band at 1,740 cm-1 in FT-IR spectrum (Fig. 3a).
Cotton-DTPA 41.6 5.8 3.4 0.8
All the results above testified to the chemical linkage
between DTPA molecular and cellulose in kapok-
Apparatus error of elemental analysis is 0.3 % DTPA.

Adsorption of kapok-DTPA for metal ions

band at 1,740 cm-1 in the spectrum of kapok-DTPA
confirms that ester bond and carboxyl were introduced
As a chelating agent, DTPA is known to form strong
onto kapok-DTPA after modification with DTPA. The
complexes with most metal ions (Byegard et al. 1999;
broad band at 1,601 cm-1 of kapok-DTPA is attrib-
Repo et al. 2009). The amine centers and carboxylates
uted to the carboxylate asymmetric stretching, also
have high affinity for metal cations (Repo et al. 2010;
indicating that DTPA was introduced onto kapok
Sillanpaa et al. 2001; Song et al. 2012).The adsorption
surface. The unchanged characteristic absorption
study of kapok-DTPA, including kinetic study, pH
bands of cellulose at about 3,410, 2,900, 1,060 cm-1
effect, adsorption isotherms, was carried out for Pb2?,
suggest the main composition of the fibers remains
Cd2?, Cu2?. Besides, adsorption capacity of other
after chemical modification. Mkapok shows absor-
metal ions was examined. The adsorption capacity
bances at 1,659 and 897 cm-1, which are indicative of
of kapok-DTPA for various typical ions followed
hemicelluloses (Mwaikambo and Ansell 2002; Sun
the sequence of Pb2? (310.6 mg g-1) [ Cd2? (163.7
et al. 1999). The adsorption at 1,659 cm-1 is due to
mg g-1) [ Cu2? (101.0 mg g-1) [ Zn2? (64.5 mg
C=O stretch of hemicelluloses, and the band at
g-1) [ Co2? (62.8 mg g-1) [ Mn2? (50.9 mg g-1) [
897 cm-1 is characteristic of b-linked hemicelluloses.
Cr3? (33.4 mg g-1). Compared with kapok-DTPA, the
Chemical impregnation experiment and ester
quantity of metal ion adsorbed on cotton-DTPA was
hydrolysis of kapok-DTPA were carried out to confirm
only 184.8 mg g-1 for Pb2?, 88.6 mg g-1 for Cd2?,
that the interaction between DTPA and kapok was
69.2 mg g-1 for Cu2?, respectively. The difference in
adsorption capacity is mainly ascribed to the different
DTPA concentration in the two modified fibers, as is
shown in Table 1.

Adsorption kinetics

Kapok-DTPA behaves relatively fast in adsorption

Fig. 3 FT-IR spectra of kapok, Mkapok and kapok-DTPA,
impregnated kapok, EH-kapok
process for the metal ions, compared with cotton-
DTPA. As shown in Fig. 4a, the adsorption equilib-
rium is reached within 2 min for Pb2? and Cd2?, and
5 min for Cu2?, respectively. During the first minute,
the adsorption of Pb2? and Cd2? sharply increases,
with more than 90 % of the total ions being adsorbed
by the kapok-DTPA. In contrast, it takes more time for
cotton-DTPA to reach the adsorption equilibrium.
Example in Fig. 4b shows that the adsorption equi-
librium is reached within 45 min for the adsorption of

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Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860 855

Fig. 5 Adsorption kinetics of kapok-DTPA

Table 2 Pseudo-second-order constants and values for the

adsorption of Pb2?, Cd2?, Cu2? by kapok-DTPA, where q is
the experimental value of adsorption capacity calculated by
taking the average of qt at equilibrium
Ions Kapok-DTPA
r2 k qe,c (mg g-1) q (mg g-1)

Pb2? 0.9999 0.02899 302.1 298.0

2?
Cd 0.9999 0.2240 153.8 153.4
Cu2? 0.9990 0.01214 95.2 91.7

Fig. 4 Influence of contact time t on the absorption amount qt

of Cu2?, Pb2?, Cd2? by kapok-DTPA (a), and the comparison of
the adsorption behavior of kapok-DTPA and cotton-DTPA for
Pb2? (b)
Pb2? by cotton-DPTA. The hollow structure and the
high concentration of DTPA contribute to the fast
adsorption and high adsorption capacity of kapok-
DTPA.
Pseudo-second-kinetic model was used to examine
the underlying mechanism of the adsorption process.
Kinetic data were calculated with the following
equation:
t t 1 adsorption amount by kapok-DTPA. The qe increases
¼ þ 2 ; ð3Þ
qt qe;c kqe;c
where k is the rate constant of the pseudo-second-
kinetic (g mg-1 min-1), qt (mg g-1) is the adsorption
amount at time t (min), qe,c (mg g-1) is the calculated
value of the adsorption amount at the adsorption
equilibrium.
The value of qe,c and k can be calculated from the
slope and the intercept of the straight line (Fig. 5), and
the data are listed in Table 2. The results show that the
calculated qe,c is similar to the experimental value of
adsorption capacity (q), demonstrating pseudo-sec-
ond-order equation is a good fitting model for both
adsorbents. Therefore, the adsorption process of
kapok-DTPA is a chemical process. (Zhang 2011;
Tang et al. 2012; Zhou et al. 2004, 2005).
Effect of pH values
Figure 6 shows the influence of pH values on the
with the increasing of pH values until after an optimal
value the adsorption capacity declines. The reason may
be that the protonation of carboxyl groups on kapok-
DTPA at low pH values limits the interaction between
metal ions and DTPA, whereas the complex between
metal ions and adsorbents is unstable at high pH values.
The hydroxyl ions in water may participate in the

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Fig. 6 Influence of initial pH on the absorption amount of
Pb2?, Cd2?, Cu2? at equilibrium by kapok-DTPA
adsorption competition, which may also lead to the
decrease of adsorption capacity at higher pH values. The
differences of influence among three metal ions should
be attributed to the different complex capacities of the
carboxyl and hydroxyl groups with the metal ions.
Adsorption isotherms
As shown in Fig. 7, the adsorption amount at equilib-
rium for each metal ion increases dramatically with
increasing initial concentration at first and then tends
to level off.
Adsorption isotherms are used to describe how
adsorbates interact with adsorbents, and the constants
of the isotherms models are useful to determine the
Fig. 7 Influence of initial concentrations on the absorption
amount of Pb2?, Cd2?, Cu2? by kapok-DTPA
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Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860
Fig. 8 Linear plots of adsorption isotherms of kapok-DTPA at
room temperature fitted by Langmuir (a) and Freundlich
(b) models
amount of adsorbent needed to adsorb a required
amount of adsorbate (Tian et al. 2011). In this study,
Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm model
equations are used (see Fig. 8). Langmuir isotherm
model is suitable for monolayer adsorption on the
adsorbent surface, which supposes that all the adsorp-
tion sites are energetically uniform and adsorption
occurs on a structurally homogenous adsorbent (Gur-
gel and Gil 2009; Li et al. 2007; Tang et al. 2011). This
model can be expressed as:
ce 1 ce
¼ þ ; ð4Þ
qe qmax b qmax
where ce (mg L-1) is the concentration at equilibrium,
qe (mg g-1) is the adsorption amount at equilibrium,
qmax (mg g-1) and b (L mg-1) are Langmuir constants,
the former relates to saturated monolayer adsorption
Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860 857

Table 3 Langmuir and Freundlich parameters for adsorption adsorption intensity, respectively. Kf is related to
isotherms of kapok-DTPA anion binding affinity, and n can be used to judge
Langmuir parameters Freundlich whether the adsorption process is favorable. The
parameters parameters calculated from the two isotherm models
qmax b (L r2 Kf (L n r2 were summarized in Table 3. According to the
(mg g-1) mg-1) mg-1) linear correlation coefficient (r2), metal ions adsorp-
tion onto kapok-DTPA belongs to the Langmuir
Cu2? 101.0 0.1765 0.9983 53.2 9 0.6994
isotherm model.
Pb2? 310.6 0.1200 0.9985 85.4 4 0.5630
From Table 3, we can see qmax of kapok-DTPA is
Cd2? 163.7 0.1017 0.9960 62.7 6 0.6928 310.6 mg g-1 for Pb2?, 163.7 mg g-1 for Cd2? and
101.0 mg g-1 for Cu2?. For Langmuir constant b [ 0,
the values of the separation factor RL are between 0
capacity and the latter relates to adsorption energy. In
and 1, indicating the adsorption process of kapok-
Langmuir model, a dimensionless parameter called
DTPA for each ion is favorable. In relation to the
separation factor RL which can indicate whether the
majority of the adsorbents derived from natural
adsorption process is favorable, is defined as follows:
materials in the literature, kapok-DTPA shows good
1 performance (Table 4). The results demonstrate kapok
RL ¼ : ð5Þ
1 þ bc0 fiber, due to its hollow structure and thin shell, is a
According to Freundlich isotherm model which is promising candidate for the fabrication of natural
based on multilayer or heterogeneous surfaces, qe is materials based adsorbents for the removal of metal
related to the concentration of metal ion in solution at ions from wasted water.
adsorption equilibrium as the following equation:
Regeneration and re-adsorption
1
ln qe ¼ ln Kf þ ln ce ; ð6Þ
n
The regeneration of kapok-DTPA with 1 M HCl
where Kf (L mg-1) and n are Freundlich con- solution had little influence on ester bond between
stants representing the adsorption capacity and the DTPA and cellulose (see Fig. 9, the content of N

Table 4 Adsorption capacities of various adsorbents for metal ions

Adsorbent Adsorption capacity and equilibrium time (mg g-1/min) References
2? 2? 2?
Pb Cd Cu

Polymer-modified magnetic nanoparticles 166/45 29.6/45 127/45 Ge et al. (2012)

Sugar beet pulp (polysaccharide)a 73.8/60 24.4/20 21.2/30 Reddad et al. (2002)
Crosslinked chitosan with epichlorohydrina 34.1/240 – 35.5/240 Chen et al. (2008)
Poly(vinyl alcohol)/chitosan 166/504 126.1/540 238/660 Li et al. (2011)
a
Dairy manure compost 95.3/\60 – 27.2/\60 Zhang (2011)
Banana peel 21.0/20 – 41.4/20 Castro et al. (2011)
Sawdusta 21.0/60 – 6.61/60 Li et al. (2007)
Modified peanut huska 29.1/60 – 10.1/60 Li et al. (2007)
Modified wheat strawa – – 397/[100 Han et al. (2010)
Modified peanut shellsa – 14.2/120 – Liu et al. (2010)
a
EDTA modified sugarcane bagasse 333/20 149/20 92.6/20 Júnior et al. (2009)
Succinic anhydride modified cellulosea 205.9/10 86.0/10 30.4/10 Gurgel et al. (2008a, b)
DTPA modified cotton 184.8/45 – – This study
Kapok-DTPAa 310.6/2 163.7/2 101.0/5 This study
a
The Langmuir maximum capacity

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Fig. 9 Content of N, obtained from elemental analysis (appa-
ratus error: 0.3 %), and adsorption capacity (qe) of the
regenerated kapok-DTPA at different recycle time
fluctuated within apparatus error range). After 8 times
of desorption and re-adsorption loop, slight decrease
was observed in adsorption capacity for Pb2? and
Cu2?. The lost adsorption capacities for Pb2? and
Cu2? were less than 10 %.
Conclusion
Kapok fiber, a natural fiber with large hollow struc-
ture, has been modified with DTPA. The resultant
kapok-DTPA shows a fast adsorption for the metal
ions with the adsorption equilibrium being reached
within 2 min for Pb2? and Cd2?, and 5 min for Cu2?.
Maximum adsorption capacities of kapok-DTPA are
310.6 mg g-1 for Pb2?, 163.7 mg g-1 for Cd2?, and
101.0 mg g-1 for Cu2?, respectively. Because of its
large specific area, the modified kapok fibers have a
larger adsorption capacity than that of many other
reported absorbents based on natural materials. The
adsorption capacity of kapok-DTPA remains higher
than 90 % after 8 loops of desorption and re-adsorp-
tion. All the results promise this low-cost, widely
available and environmental friendly natural fiber a
practical application in the removal of heavy ions from
polluted water.
Acknowledgments This work was supported by National
Natural Scientific Foundation of China (No. 51073166,
21121001), the Open Project of State Key Laboratory
Cultivation Base for Nonmetal Composites and Functional
Materials (No. 2210zxfk22).
123
Cellulose (2013) 20:849–860
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