Abstract: In this present work, to overcome the problem of eutrophication due to phosphate an attempt was made to develop eco-friendly materials using chitosan and bentonite. To improve the properties of bentonite (bent) and chitosan (CS), chitosan supported bentonite (CSBent) composites were prepared and utilized for phosphate removal. To enhance the uptake capacity of CSBent, various multivalent metal ions like Zr4+, Fe3+ and Ca2+ were imprinted on CSBent composites namely Zr@CSBent, Fe@CSBent and Ca@CSBent biocomposites respectively. These three biocomposites possess the efficient sorption capacity (SC) are found to be 40.86, 22.15 and 13.44 mg/g than the individual CSBent. The systematic study for various water influenced parameters such as agitation time, presence of co-existent anions, solution pH, temperature and initial phosphate concentration has been verified in batch mode. The prepared biocomposites was exemplified by FTIR, TEM, SEM and EDAX analysis. The experimental data was fitted to various isotherms and thermodynamic parameters. The mechanism of phosphate removal by M@CSBent was governed by ion exchange, electrostatic attraction and inner sphere complexation. This study reveals a feasibility of biocomposites for phosphate uptake from polluted water streams at field situation
Author keywords: Chitosan, Lewis metal ion, Biocomposite, Phosphate, Field trial