Cellulose based cation-exchange fiber as filtration material for the rapid removal of methylene blue from wastewater

The development of eco-friendly adsorbent with perfect solid/liquid separation performance is of great practical importance for the efficient purification of dye-containing wastewater. Herein, cellulose based cation-exchange fibrous bio-adsorbent (CEF) was successfully obtained via an industrialized cellulose etherification process. The fiber morphology can be maintained with the average degree of substitution (DS) of CEF as about 0.19. The CEF showed high efficiency adsorption for methylene blue (MB): achieving 82% of equilibrium uptake (447.69 mg·g −1 ) within 5 min. Especially, the non-woven porous filter material, formed by CEFs and glass fibers, showed the praisable solid/liquid separation characteristics, fast water filtration rate (≈ 6.3 m 3 ·m −2 ·h −1 ) and high removal rate (≈ 99.2%) when it was used to adsorb MB (150 ppm) from wastewater. In addition, CEF filter material can be regenerated via a simple method. This study demonstrates that green natural fiber materials are promising for the economical and efficient purification of dye-containing wastewater. Graphic abstract