Sonochemically Prepared BSA Microspheres as Adsorbents for the Removal of Organic Pollutants from Water

Abstract

This work investigates, for the first time, the application of sonochemically prepared bovine serum albumin (BSA) microspheres (BSAMS) as adsorbents of industrial organic pollutant dyes, such as rhodamine B (RhB), rhodamine 6G (Rh6G), and methylene blue (MB). These dyes also serve as model compounds for other organic pollutants such as bisphenol A and 2-nitrophenol. Adsorption kinetics of the dyes by the BSAMS was studied using pseudo-first-order (PFO) and pseudo-secondorder (PSO) kinetic models. It was found that RhB follows PFO, with an adsorption capacity, q e,cal , of 7.9 mg/g, which was closer to the experimental adsorption capacity of q e,exp. of 7.6 mg/g. However, MB and Rh6G were controlled by PSO kinetics, with a q e,cal of 5.6 mg/g for MB and 6.6 mg/g for Rh6G, closer to the experimental adsorption capacity of 5.7 and 6.4 mg/g, respectively. The intraparticle diffusion (ID) model applied to the three dyes indicated multi-linearity with ID as the rate-limiting step in the adsorption process. Furthermore, the adsorption equilibria for each of the organic pollutants were studied through various isotherm models such as Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, and Halsey, which indicated physical interaction between the BSAMS and the dye pollutants, thus suggesting the applicability of the BSAMS as pollutant adsorbent materials. It was found that the BSAMS can effectively remove RhB, MB, and Rh6G from wastewater with efficiencies of 95.5, 83.3, and 97.9%, respectively.

High-Flux Nanofibrous Composite Reverse Osmosis Membrane Containing Interfacial Water Channels for Desalination

“…Antifouling Properties of the RO Membrane. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is one of the most representative organic pollutants, 34 and the membrane fouling resistance was evaluated by conducting protein fouling experiments under the abovementioned filtration system, as described in Section 2.5. The feed solution for the BSA contamination test consisted of 2000 ppm NaCl and 100 ppm BSA at a pH value of 6.8 ± 0.1.…”

Function of Polymers in Encapsulation Process

“…It has proven to be a facile, cost-and timeeffective technique that enables highly efficient encapsulation of a variety of drugs/cargo in the shell, as well as the core of the capsules. Our group has utilized this technique to synthesize protein microcapsules of BSA [83], HSA, and egg albumin [84], encapsulating a variety of hydrophilic and hydrophobic cargo, including gemcitabine [20], ribonucleic acid (RNA) [16,35], rhodamine B [85], MSQ (12i) 1-methyl-4-(substituted) styryl-quinolinium derivative [85,86], etc. During ultrasonication-assisted emulsification, the size of the protein microspheres depends on the nature of the oil-water interface, viscosity, surface tension, and hydrophobicity of the organic phase.…”

Designing Natural Polymer-Based Capsules and Spheres for Biomedical Applications—A Review

“…It has proven to be a facile, cost-and timeeffective technique that enables highly efficient encapsulation of a variety of drugs/cargo in the shell, as well as the core of the capsules. Our group has utilized this technique to synthesize protein microcapsules of BSA [83], HSA, and egg albumin [84], encapsulating a variety of hydrophilic and hydrophobic cargo, including gemcitabine [20], ribonucleic acid (RNA) [16,35], rhodamine B [85], MSQ (12i) 1-methyl-4-(substituted) styryl-quinolinium derivative [85,86], etc. [92].…”