Sustainable remediation of a cationic dye in aqueous solutions using modified palm petiole as a highly efficient and reusable adsorbent

Abstract

This study adopted acid treatment of palm petioles for preparing (APP), which reached notably the whole removal ratio of 99% (60 min) of methylene blue (150 mg/L) and can still maintain good performance after 5 cycles. The adsorbents were analyzed using SEM, FTIR, pH_PZC, and SSA estimation by methylene blue adsorption. The modification of the rough palm petiole with phosphoric acid enables the APP to enhance the intensity of MB adsorption from wastewater. With high R² and the lowest RMSE, the pseudo-second-order model is the most suitable model that describes MB adsorption on APP. There is an intraparticle diffusion, which occurs with the pseudo-second-order. pH has a great effect on MB removal. MB adsorption process was found to be spontaneous and the exothermic. Langmuir model gives very satisfactory results with value of correlation coefficient > 0.93, and the lowest values of RMSE, and saturated monolayers with values of quantities adsorbed close to experimental values. The progressive elimination percentages of the MB on APP were from 95.03% to 41.87% from the first cycle to the fifth cycle of adsorption–desorption. Obtained results have shown that APP is a very promoting adsorbent in the field of wastewater treatment.