Annona glabra L. Seeds: An Agricultural Waste Biosorbent for the Eco-Friendly Removal of Methylene Blue

Abstract

The seeds of Annona glabra L., an invasive plant in Vietnam, were first employed as a new biosorbent for the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous media. The characterizations of the material using FT-IR, SEM, nitrogen adsorption–desorption analysis, and point of zero charge reveals that it possesses a rough and irregular surface, various polar functional groups, and pH_pzc of 5.5. Certain adsorption conditions including adsorbent dose, solution pH, contact time, and initial concentration of MB were found to affect adsorption efficiency. The kinetic data are well fitted with pseudo-second-order model with the adsorption rate of 0.002 g mg⁻¹ min⁻¹ and initial rate of 4.46 mg g⁻¹ min⁻¹. For the adsorption isotherm, three nonlinear models were used to analyze the experiment data, including Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin. The results indicate that the Langmuir model best describes the adsorption of Annona glabra L. seeds powder (AGSP) with a maximum adsorption capacity of 98.0 mg g⁻¹. The investigation underpins the adsorption mechanism, whereby the electrostatic attraction between positively charged MB and negatively charged surface of AGSP is expected to be the predominant mechanism, together with hydrogen bonding and pi–pi interaction. These results make AGSP an interesting biosorbent concerning its environmental friendliness, cost-effectiveness, and relatively high dye adsorption capacity.