Antibacterial hydrogel integrating chitosan and polyquaternary ammonium salt for enhanced uranium recovery

To develop an adsorbent that not only efficiently adsorbs uranium ions but also withstands microbial deterioration in the environment, we fabricated an antibacterial hydrogel from chitosan, named ITDC, which boasts the advantages of antibacterial properties, thermal sensitivity, and ion-imprinting characteristics. ITDC was synthesized via a one-pot ion-imprinting copolymerization process, utilizing dimethyldiallylammonium chloride as the antimicrobial monomer and N-isopropylacrylamide as the thermosensitive monomer. ITDC demonstrated an antibacterial efficacy of 99.20 % against E. coli . An adsorption capacity of 90.93 mg/g was attained under the optimized conditions. ITDC exhibited remarkable reusability and superior adsorption selectivity compared to its non-imprinted counterpart NTDC. The high correlation with the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order model underscored the predominant role of chemical adsorption in ITDC. ΔH θ (64.56 kJ/mol) and ΔS θ (257.38J/mol·K) than NTDC (ΔH θ 18.97kJ/mol, ΔS θ (117.04J/mol·K) indicated that ITDC was more thermally sensitive than NTDC, attributed to its ion-imprinting structure.