Metal-ion-imprinted thermo-responsive materials obtained from bacterial cellulose: synthesis, characterization, and adsorption evaluation

In this study, a novel gradient heating procedure was developed to fabricate the targeted metal-ion-imprinted thermo-responsive material, i.e. ion-imprinted thermo-responsive BC derivative (ITB), from bacterial cellulose using Cu2+ as a template and N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM) as a monomer; moreover, the structure and properties of ITB were analysed via various analytical techniques including FTIR spectroscopy, DSC, SEM, and Raman spectroscopy. The lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of ITB was 38.57 °C in the heating procedure, whereas it was 30.81 °C in the cooling procedure. The adsorption capacity of ITB for Cu2+ reached 95.20 mg g−1 at 45 °C (>LCST), the desorption rate was 98.81%, and desorption could be simply achieved by washing the adsorbents with water at 20 °C (