Adsorption of anionic dye by anionic surfactant modified chitosan beads: Influence of hydrophobic tail and ionic head-group

In this paper, how chitosan hydrogel beads were modified by anionic surfactants (SDS, SDOS, SDBS, AOT, and DTM-12) and then used for the adsorption and removal of an anionic dye (congo red) from aqueous solutions were described. The effect of surfactant concentration, surfactant ionic head-group, and surfactant hydrophobic tail were investigated in detail. The result revealed the modified CS beads all had the obviously higher adsorption capacity than CS beads. Compared to the ionic head-group, the hydrophobic tail of the surfactant plays more important role in the adsorption, and a high adsorption capacity was observed for CS/AOT beads and CS/DTM-12 beads (both with two hydrophobic tails). The Sips isotherm model showed a good fit with the equilibrium experimental data, and the values of the heterogeneity factor (n) indicated heterogeneous adsorption. The adsorption kinetics analysis indicated that the pseudo-second-order rate model could better describe the adsorption process than the pseudo-first-order rate model.