Removed heavy metal ions from wastewater reuse for chemiluminescence: Successive application of lignin-based composite hydrogels

The novel sulfomethylated lignin-grafted-polyacrylic acid (SL-g-PAA) hydrogel was fabricated in this work via a facile and green synthetic strategy for the efficient removal of heavy metal ions from wastewater, and then successively reused for chemiluminescence (CL). The sulfomethylation of lignin was first performed to improve its water solubility and introduce numerous active sites for adsorption of heavy metal ions. The as-synthesized SL-g-PAA hydrogel with high content of lignin exhibited the highly efficient and rapid removal of various metal ions from simulated wastewater. More importantly, the spent hydrogel (M2+@SL-g-PAA) after adsorption was reused for the first time to develop a new CL system by an ingenious strategy, in which these metal ions adsorbed on M2+@SL-g-PAA act as heterogeneous catalytic sites to catalyze the CL reaction between N-(4-aminobutyl)-N-ethylisoluminol (ABEI) and H2O2. The resultant CL system displayed high CL intensity and long duration time, which could be observed by naked eye in the dark and lasted for > 24 h. The combination of facile fabrication process, renewable raw materials, and ingenious strategy for successive application in adsorption and CL endows this lignin-based composite hydrogel with a great potential for application in wastewater treatment, biological imaging and cold light sources.