Cross-linked sponge fungal hyphae: an efficient and environmentally friendly sorbent addition of iodine

The high cost and strict production conditions restrict the practical application of iodine adsorbents, which makes researchers focus on biomass materials in the search for cost-effective iodine adsorbents. Mucor is a ubiquitous natural material that is easy to prepare and obtain. Sodium alginate is also an environmentally friendly material. In this paper, a sponge-like complex (sponge-M/SA) is prepared by mixing alginate and fungal mycelium by a simple immobilization method, and applied to the study of iodine vapor adsorption to evaluate its adsorption performance. The prepared adsorbent shows excellent adsorption performance. The maximum adsorption capacity was 1136.52 mg g−1 at 353.15 K, and the kinetic data has a good correlation with the pseudo-second-order model. The combination of cheap materials and environmentally friendly microbial materials to prepare an immobilized sponge for capturing iodine vapor has promising application value.