Abstract:
Organic dyes used in various industries can cause environmental damage upon their discharge
with effluent into the environment. Thus, the need from industrial effluents using an adsorption
process is a vital issue to decrease the effect of dyes. In this study the removal of methylene blue
(MB) dye in aqueous media using CuO NPs, Ni-CuO NPs, Ni-CuO/AC and Ni-CuO/ZC NCs was
investigated. The synthesized nanomaterials were characterized with the help of XRD, UV-Vis
and FTIR spectroscopy. Accordingly, the UV-Vis analysis revealed better absorption in the case
of the nanocomposite as compared to its parent materials. XRD analysis has been employed to
determine the structural formation of the nanocomposite and the average crystallite size was
17.35nm. The functional group present on the adsorbent material was determined by the FTIR
spectroscopic techniques. The optimum operational condition for the measured best adsorption
performance of the prepared Ni-CuO/ZC NCs was achieved at 10 ppm, 4 pH, 0.15 g and 40
minutes for dye initial concentration, pH, adsorbent dose, and contact time, respectively. The
maximum removal efficiency of the prepared adsorbent at those optimum conditions was 99.4
%. The experimental data were analyzed by the Langmuir and Freundlich models of adsorption.
The equilibrium data were fitted well with the Langmuir model and the rates of adsorption were
found pseudo-first-order kinetics with good correlation value.
