Characterization of an engineered cellulose based membrane by thiol dendrimer for heavy metals removal Manuel Algarra a,⇑ , María Isabel Vázquez b , Beatriz Alonso c , Carmen María Casado c , Juan Casado d , Juana Benavente b,⇑ a Dept. Inorganic Chemisty, Faculty of Science, University of Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain b Grupo de Caracterización Electrocinética en Membranas e Interfases, Dpto. Física Aplicada I, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain c Dpto. Química Inorgánica, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain d Dpto. Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain highlights  Thiol polypropylenimine (DAB-3-(SH) 16 ) dendrimer engineered cellulosic support membranes.  Chemical, elastic and electrical characterizations of original and engineered membranes.  Diffusive permeability reduction of heavy metal (Cd 2+ , Hg 2+ and Pb 2+ ) solutions.  Potential application in electrochemical devices for heavy metal water remediation. graphical abstract article info Article history: Received 7 November 2013 Received in revised form 13 May 2014 Accepted 19 May 2014 Available online 27 May 2014 Keywords: Thiolated DAB dendrimer Engineered cellulosic membrane Diffusive permeability reduction Heavy metals remediation abstract Diaminobutane based poly(propyleneimine) dendrimer functionalized with sixteen thiol groups, DAB-3-(SH) 16 , was successfully embeded in a swollen cellulosic support in order to achieve an easily handle engineered membrane. The membrane was characterised by physicochemical, electrical and transport measurements, and the effect of the dendrimer was established by comparing these results with those obtained for the original cellulosic support. Results show that dendrimer inclusion improves the membrane elastic behaviour (Young modulus increase around 20%), while a significant reduction in the permeation of toxics heavy metals (Cd 2+ , Hg 2+ and Pb 2+ ) was also obtained, which avails the possible application of dendrimer-modified membrane in electrochemical devices for water remediation. Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Membrane processes such as ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis are nowadays currently applied to sea and brack- ish water desalting [1,2], while liquid supported membranes and polymer inclusion membranes have been proposed for treatment of industrial wastewater and metal cations recovery [3,4]. In fact, heavy metal contamination of natural and wastewaters has become an important environmental problem, being cadmium, nickel, lead, mercury, copper and zinc the most hazardous [5,6]. Among the strategies proposal for metal ions removal from water, diffusive separation by heavy metal contaminated water passes through a membrane is a simple technique applicable to electro- chemical devices. Regenerated cellulose (RC) is a natural material used in mem- brane manufacture due to their high hydrophilicity and rather good chemical and solvent resistance. Particularly, RC membranes exhibit very high swelling degrees when they are in contact with http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2014.05.082 1385-8947/Ó 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding authors. Tel.: +34 952131929; fax: +34 952132000. E-mail addresses: malgarra67@gmail.com (M. Algarra), j_benavente@uma.es (J. Benavente). Chemical Engineering Journal 253 (2014) 472–477 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Journal journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cej