Construction of Environment-Friendly PVA/Chitin Composite Foams via Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Foaming for Wastewater Treatment

Water pollution, particularly from heavy metal ions, remains a major environmental challenge, necessitating the development of cost-effective and sustainable adsorbents.This study presents a novel polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/chitin composite foam synthesized via solid-state shearing milling (S 3 M) and supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) foaming technologies.The composite foams with high cell density exhibited improved structural integrity, mechanical strength, and adsorption capacity.The composite foam with 10% chitin loading demonstrated a 193% increase in copper ion adsorption and a 56% improvement for lead ions compared to pure PVA foam.The results indicate that the synergistic effect of PVA and chitin enhances the comprehensive performance of the foams parts.