Synthesis of Sodium Alginate‐Pomegranate Peel Hydrogels for the Remediation of Heavy Metals from Contaminated Drinking Water

The use of agrochemicals in agriculture is common around the world as it allows for increased crop production. However, they also contain heavy metals such as copper and nickel, which can leach into the drinking water and harm the environment and human health. As such, it is important to remediate them from drinking water. One way to do so is via adsorption using biosorbents. This study aimed to synthesize and characterize environmentally friendly hydrogels from sodium alginate and pomegranate peel. The effect of organic vs commercial pomegranate peel was also tested. Moreover, the gel’s ability to remediate copper and nickel from contaminated water was tested. The gels were characterized using FTIR, SEM and water uptake tests. These results were promising as FTIR showed that the expected functional groups were present, SEM showed that incorporating organic pomegranate peel enhanced the roughness and porosity of the gels, and gels with organic pomegranate peel incorporations were able to take up 1.58x more water than sodium alginate only gels. Moreover, the effect of contact time, pH and adsorbent amount was tested for copper and showed that the optimal contact time was 60 minutes, the optimal pH was ~5, and increasing adsorbent amount decreases adsorption. The effect of contact time was tested for nickel and showed that the optimal contact time was 5 minutes. Overall, these hydrogels show promising results for the remediation of copper and nickel from contaminated water.