Abstract Heavy metal pollution has raised serious concerns due to the potential threat to public health and the environment. Adsorption is an important method for removing metal ions from wastewater, but many current adsorbents are limited by high cost, low adsorption efficiency and poor cyclability. Herein, a compressible composite (PEI-NW) with a porous structure is prepared by a simple chemical treatment of nanowood (NW) with polyethyleneimine (PEI). Modification of NW with PEI enables the efficient adsorption of metal ions. PEI-NW shows excellent adsorption efficiency. Adsorbed heavy metal ions can be rapidly desorbed by simply immersing PEI-NW in a desorption solution. PEI-NW can be reused by employing the squeezing method because of its excellent compressibility. The adsorbent can remove the heavy metal ions from polluted water with 60% of adsorption efficiency even after 50 adsorption-desorption cycles. This compressible composite provides new insights for the design of efficient cleaners for heavy metal ion removal and offers approaches to the development of functionalization of biomass-based composites.

中文翻译：

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用于废水净化应用的可压缩纳米木材/聚合物复合吸附剂

摘要 重金属污染对公众健康和环境构成潜在威胁，引起了人们的严重关注。吸附是去除废水中金属离子的重要方法，但目前许多吸附剂存在成本高、吸附效率低、循环性差等问题。在此，通过用聚乙烯亚胺 (PEI) 对纳米木材 (NW) 进行简单的化学处理，制备了具有多孔结构的可压缩复合材料 (PEI-NW)。用 PEI 修饰 NW 可以有效吸附金属离子。PEI-NW 显示出优异的吸附效率。只需将 PEI-NW 浸入解吸溶液中，就可以快速解吸吸附的重金属离子。由于 PEI-NW 具有出色的可压缩性，因此可以通过采用挤压方法重复使用。即使经过50次吸附-解吸循环，该吸附剂仍能以60%的吸附效率去除污水中的重金属离子。这种可压缩复合材料为设计用于去除重金属离子的高效清洁剂提供了新的见解，并为开发基于生物质的复合材料的功能化提供了方法。