Nicolette Prevost and Brian Condon. Southern Regional Research Center, USDA-ARS, 1100 Robert E. Lee Blvd., New Orleans, LA 70124-4305
Cotton (cellulose) is a known favorite in the textile industry and is the most used natural fiber-cloth to date. As we move to use more biodegradable, renewable and sustainable resources, cellulose, a natural polymer, is attracting attention and finding application in oil recovery, cosmetics, surfactant industry, wastewater treatment and medicine. Chemically modifying one or all of its three reactive functional groups of its repeating unit can achieve different properties. In this presentation, we will take a look at the preliminary development of cotton/cellulose adsorbent products though grafting or covalently attaching suitable monomers to selectively chelate or complex heavy metals and/or dye pollutants.