Covalently functionalized sawdust for the remediation of phosphate from agricultural wastewater

Session: Poster Session

Daniel Meister, University of Windsor , dmeister@uwindsor.ca
David Ure, University of Windsor, ured@uwindsor.ca
Bulent Mutus, University of Windsor, mutusb@uwindsor.ca
John Trant , University of Windsor, J.Trant@uwindsor.ca

Abstract

Phosphate remediation from wastewater is an attractive process due to a combination of economic pressure from increasing phosphate scarcity and the environmental damage caused by untreated agricultural runoff. Previously prepared iron-chitosan complexes bound 8.2 g/kg. However, the price of chitosan has rapidly increased and alternatives are required. Sawdust functionalized with iron-binding ligands can retain phosphate from wastewater. Sawdust alone binds 0.3 g/kg of phosphate which is insufficient. The covalent modification of the sawdust using either carboxymethyl cellulose-supported ligands, or direct functionalization of the sawdust increases this to 40 g/kg using ethylene diamine as the iron-binding ligand. The simple green synthesis of this material, and the iron-binding capability of the investigated ligands indicates the potential use for large scale application of these matrices for phosphate remediation.