Design of Sustainable Biopolymer Matrices for Adsorptive Water Remediation

The growing demand for sustainable approaches to manufacturing processes has led to increased motivation for water conservation, remediation, and reuse. Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) is a crucial process in the semiconductor manufacturing industry that ensures defect-free planarization of device architectures. However, immense volumes of freshwater are polluted with a complex mixture of nanoparticles, organic material, chemical additives, and substrate effluent. Different approaches to remediation efforts have been conducted evaluating adsorptive techniques of wastewater treatment through biopolymeric filtration media. Cellulose acetate beads and films were produced using the solvent exchange method yielding spheroid-shaped beads and square-shaped films. The adsorption of methylene blue dye has been observed in beads and films composed of networked cellulose that exhibit complex kinetics. Adsorption kinetics were determined through several methylene blue removal studies of temperature and surface area.