A high-performance adsorbent was produced by grafting polyaniline onto biopolymer chitosan. The morphological structure of cross-linked chitosan grafted with polyaniline was studied by scanning electron microscopy. Functional groups of the synthesized adsorbent were identified by Fourier-transform infrared. The performance of the prepared adsorbent was examined by batch adsorption experiments. The adsorption studies were performed with different operating parameters such as contact time, initial pH, adsorbent dosage and temperature. To evaluate adsorption isotherms, Freundlich, Langmuir and Dubinin-Radushkevich models were fitted to obtained data and the isotherm parameters were determined. Kinetics of the adsorption was studied by pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models. It was observed that the obtained data were fitted more accurately with the pseudo-second-order model than the pseudo-first-order model. At optimum conditions, the maximum capacity and the removal efficiency of copper ions adsorption were obtained 131.58 mg/g and 92.5%, respectively. The regeneration efficiency and the removal efficiency of regenerated adsorbent were 97.7 and 90.4%, respectively. The results revealed the adsorbent has a great potential for adsorption of Cu (II) from aqueous solution.
