Silk Sericin-Polyethyleneimine Hybrid Hydrogel with Excellent Structural Stability for Cr(VI) Removal

• Published in: Macromolecular research Vol. 29; no. 12; pp. 895 - 904
• Main Authors: Oh, Subin, Kim, Jungkyu, Kim, YunJin, Park, Subong, Jin, Hyoung-Joon, Kwak, Hyo Won
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Polymer Society of Korea 01.12.2021; Springer Nature B.V; 한국고분자학회
• Subjects: Adsorption; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Complex Fluids and Microfluidics; Compression tests; Crosslinking; Hydrogels; Nanochemistry; Nanotechnology; Physical Chemistry; Polyethyleneimine; Polymer Sciences; Silk; Silkworms; Soft and Granular Matter; Structural stability; Synergistic effect; 고분자공학; silk; sericin; polyethyleneimine (PEI); Cr(VI) removal; adsorbent; hydrogel
• ISSN: 1598-5032; 2092-7673
• DOI: 10.1007/s13233-021-9098-0

In this study, a hydrogel-type high-performance Cr(VI) adsorbent was prepared using silk sericin (SS), a secondary silkworm silk protein. Cationic polyethyleneimine (PEI) was used during gelation to confer structural stability to SS and improve its Cr(VI) adsorption performance. The compressive test results indicated that the compression deformation stability of the SS-PEI hybrid hydrogel was four times higher than that of the pristine SS hydrogel owing to the synergistic effect of electrostatic attraction and chemical crosslinking. In addition, the SS-PEI hydrogel presented an excellent Cr(VI) removal capacity of 466 mg/g, which was the highest value among all the SS-based adsorption materials reported to date. In addition, SS-PEI maintained an excellent adsorption efficiency of 90.3% after six adsorption cycles.