Facile synthesis of degradable CA/CS imprinted membrane by hydrolysis polymerization for effective separation and recovery of Li.

Lithium resources are attractive for different applications because of their specific properties. Therefore, it is more significant to find a cost-effective and environment-friendly method to selective adsorption and recovery of Li. In this work, a renewable and easy degradable CA/CS hybrid membrane was modified with polydopamine as adhesion layer to anchored TiO. The simple imprinting process could be realized by hydrolysis polymerization. The adsorption process followed Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic equation were researched in detail. The results displayed the maximum adsorption capacity is 20.08 mg g for Li. The selectivity factors of Li to Na, K, Mg and Ca are 1.78, 2.43, 2.60 and 3.61, respectively, which mainly attributed to imprinting effect. The LIICMs also exhibited the superior reusability and durability. Thus, the LIICMs provide a powerful tool for selective separation and recovery of Li from mixed solutions.