Use and Evaluation of Chitosan As a Water Recovery Agent in an Inorganic Ionic Solution

The recovery of water from contaminated bodies is a major concern because of the upcoming scarcity of this resource. Chitosan is an organic and biodegradable polymer that occurs in crustaceous shells. For this purpose, we prepared chitosan beads by drop addition in an alkaline bath, evaluating its time of assembly as a function of pH, showing its best resolution at pH=12. Then, using a single-solute, 10 ppm, solution of  As, the chitosan beads were submerged in it, and after that, the remaining concentration of As was measured using ICP-MS. The remaining concentration of the samples were higher than before the elution, thus confirming the capacity of Chitosan to retrieve water from a single-solute inorganic  ionic solution.