DEVELOPMENT OF HYDROGEL BEAD NANOCOMPOSITE USING TEA DUST FOR THE AQUEOUS BIOMEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT

Most of the Bio-medical wastes got dumped in highly eminent aquatic sources. To control this pollution due to biomedical wastes, the current study focused on the development of hydrogel bead nanocomposite incorporated with the adsorbent and nanoparticles along with biopolymer. The formed hydrogel bead nanocomposite acts as an effective adsorbent of infectious microbes, heavy metals and pollution causing materials. The conjugation efficiency of the activated tea dust, zinc oxide nanoparticles, and bioconjugated system was analyzed using UV-Vis spectroscopy which shows the maximum absorption at 330nm, 379nm, and 580nm in the conjugation system. Further, this was analyzed using FTIR shows good functional groups stretching, Dynamic Light Scattering analysis depicts the particle size as 5.203µm and has good stability. The effectiveness of the hydrogel bead nanocomposite on the wastewater sample was characterized through solubility test and heavy metal adsorption ability. The bead does not solubilize in the water sample over a long time which shows the high stability of the conjugated system. Whereas the adsorption efficiency (%R) of the hydrogel bead in the Sengulam lake water sample was found to be 90.29% and from Kurichi lake it was found to be 4.21%. This hydrogel bead containing nanocomposite acts as an eco-friendly product, it can be bio-degradable and does not cause any threat to the marine source. It can be act as a good adsorbent of various forms of biological wastes.