Page | 4356 Indian saffron - Turmeric (Curcuma longa) embedded supermacroporous cryogel discs for heavy metal removal Sevgi Aslıyüce 1 , Nilay Bereli 1 , Aykut Topçu 2 , Pramod W. Ramteke 3 , Adil Denizli 1,* 1 Hacettepe University, Department of Chemistry, Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey 2 Aksaray University, Department of Chemistry, Aksaray, Turkey 3 Sam Higginbotton University of Agriculture, Technology and Science, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Allahabad, India *corresponding author e-mail address: denizli@hacettepe.edu.tr |7101623828 ABSTRACT Cryogels are used in a variety of environmental and biotechnological processes. Cryogels are polymeric materials with large pores and open flow channels. Turmeric is a very popular spice, especially in India, which has been shown to contain curcumin alkaloids to treat a variety of many diseases. Playing a protective and therapeutic role against the diseases results from being able to bind to various targets. In this study, Indian saffron (Turmeric) embedded poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) cryogel discs (Tur-PHEMA/CDs) have been prepared to remove heavy metal ions from waste-water, which is a major environmental problem by utilizing the heavy metal binding property of turmeric. Tur-PHEMA/CDs were used to remove Cu(II), Pb(II), Cd(II) ions. Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) cryogel discs (PHEMA/CDs) were also used as control polymer. The prepared cryogels are characterized by multiple experimental tests. The Tur-PHEMA/CDs and PHEMA/CDs with respectively swelling ratio of 83.6% and 71.2% were used in heavy metal ions adsorption studies. pH values of the solution were changed in the range of 3.0-6.0 to determine optimum pH. Maximum adsorption capacities of the Tur-PHEMA/CDs from aqueous solution were 18.36 mg/g for Cu(II), 8.99 mg/g for Pb(II) and 5.76 mg/g for Cd(II). The affinity order of heavy metal ions on mass basis was Cu(II) > Pb(II) > Cd(II) from synthetic wastewater. EDTA solution (0.5 M) was used for desorbing of heavy metal ions. Keywords: Indian saffron; cryogel; heavy metal ion; embedding; waste water treatment. 1. INTRODUCTION Turmeric is a spice obtained from the rhizomes of Curcuma longa (zingiberaceae). Turmeric contains an alcoloid called curcumin, which gives the yellow color of this spice [1-3]. It is used in the treatment of many diseases in traditional Indian medicine known as Ayurveda for many years. In recent years, studies have shown that turmeric has many therapeutic properties such as cancer [4-7], inflammatory [8-10], Neurodegenerative [11- 13] and cardiovascular diseases [14-16] via curcumin because of its biological targets (various enzymes, adhesion molecules, inflammatory cytokines, anti-apoptotic proteins and heavy metals). Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental problems due to toxic effects and permanent of heavy metals [17]. The amount of heavy metal ions is increasing rapidly depending on the industrial activities from natural water such as sea, lakes, rivers, etc. The heavy metals in living organisms with the ecological cycle lead to very serious health problems. For this reason, removal of heavy metals is required from environmental and waste waters [18-21]. Adsorption processes were used commonly for removing heavy metals because of high efficiency, easy to implement, low cost and the variety rich adsorbent which are activated carbon, chitosan, cellulose and modified polymers [22-25]. In recent years, cryogels used as an adsorbent thanks to their large pores, short diffusion pathways and flexible structure [26-28]. Although there are many advantages of cryogels, low surface area and low adsorption capacity is a disadvantage. Various polymeric particles were embedded in the cryogel structure for increasing the surface area [29-32]. There are many studies for the removal of heavy metal ions and organic pollutants with the modified cryogels. These studies were included both molecular imprinting technology or various chelating groups as ligand [33-36]. In this study, we have focused our attention on combining the features of cryogels with turmeric to produce a new adsorbent system for heavy metal removal from aqueous solution. In this work, we embedded turmeric into cryogel network and used these cryogels obtained for optimizing heavy metal removal conditions. The effecting factors such as pH, ionic strength, metal ion concentration etc. were examined in the experimental studies. Finally, we performed heavy metal removal from synthetic waste water. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1. Materials. 2-Hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), N,N′-methylene- bis(acrylamide) (MBAAm) and ammonium persulfate (APS) were purchased from Sigma (St. Louis, USA). N,N,N′,N′- tetramethylene diamine (TEMED) was obtained from Fluka A.G. (Buchs, Switzerland). 1000 mg/mL stock solution of Pb(II), Cd(II) Volume 9, Issue 5, 2019, 4356 - 4361 ISSN 2069-5837 Open Access Journal Received: 05.09.2019 / Revised: 04.10.2019 / Accepted: 06.10.2019 / Published on-line: 08.10.2019 Original Research Article Biointerface Research in Applied Chemistry www.BiointerfaceResearch.com https://doi.org/10.33263/BRIAC095.356361