SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF CHITOSAN FURFURAL SCHIFF BASE IN THE REMOVAL OF AQUEOUS 2,4 – DINITROPHENOL.

ABSTRACT

This work entails the synthesis of Schiff Base through the coupling reaction of Chitosan and Furfural, for the adsorption of 2,4 – Dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP). It was characterized using  Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET). It was observed that Chitosan Furfural schiff base shows characteristic absorption peaks at 3290.35cm^-1, 1644.47cm^-1, 1552.69cm, which stretching vibrations are attributed to OH and NH groups, NH=C (Imine linkage) and aromatic ring respectively. The BET analysis showed that it had a large surface area of 339.85 m²/g, a pore diameter of 2.94nm, and a pore volume of 0.1194 cm³/g. upon carrying out the SEM analysis, it was observed that the it appeared rough with large pore surface. The compound was used to adsorb 2,4-DNP from its aqueous the adsorption isotherm showed that the Freundlich isotherm data with R² value of 0.9693 found to fit better to the adsorption data compared to that of Langmuir isotherm with R² value of 0.8562 and thus it is more suitably used to describe the relationship between the amounts of 2,4 – DNP adsorbed by the schiff base.