Abstract
In recent years, pollution of water sources by Heavy metal ions (HMIs), caused by industrial development, has aroused serious concern. The recognition of such ions in water is extremely important as the presence of even tiny amounts of them can result in serious health issues. Recently, nanocellulose-based sensors have attracted a considerable attention because of their unique physical and chemical features. This work is dedicated to develop a HMIs sensor on a substrate of cellulose nanofibers (CNFs), isolated from bleached cellulose pulp by using a high-pressure homogenizer (HPH). The images obtained from electron microscopy and the atomic force microscopy (AFM) prove the efficiency of the method applied to engender individual nanofibers. The obtained CNFs were decorated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and employed for detecting cadmium (Cd2+), lead (Pb2+), aluminium (Al3+), and copper (Cu2+). The performance of the attained sample was tested through the comparison of the spectra of the sample before and after being exposed to the aforementioned HMIs. The change in the absorbance peaks of the spectrum at ?530 nm, collected by means of ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry (UV-VIS), demonstrated the efficiency of the sensing nanocomposite.
