Chemical transformation of soya waste into stable adsorbent for enhanced removal of methylene blue and neutral red from water

• Published in: Journal of environmental chemical engineering 2021-02, Vol.9 (1), p.104902, Article 104902
• Main Authors: Batool, Asma, Valiyaveettil, Suresh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorption; Methylene blue; Modified soya waste; Neutral red; Surface modification; Water purification
• ISSN: 2213-3437; 2213-3437
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2020.104902

The removal of pollutants from wastewater through biomass-based adsorbents has recently attracted the attention of the scientific community due to good removal capacity with minimum environmental impact. However, most bio-adsorbent suffer from stability issues and often release soluble components into water during the adsorption process. In-order to improve the stability and adsorption efficiency, the renewable biomass, soya waste was coated with a thin layer of silica and used for the adsorption of neutral red (NR) and methylene blue (MB) from water. The silica coated soya waste adsorbent showed enhanced percentage removal up to ~ 97.1% for MB and 93.8% for NR. Compared to other biomass related adsorbents reported in the literature, the adsorption of pollutants was faster and efficient with the silica coated soya waste adsorbent and equilibrium was achieved within 15 min of contact time. A brief mechanistic insight was provided through the data collected from pseudo-second order kinetic and Langmuir model. Silica coated soya waste is ecofriendly, renewable, easy to regenerate and highly efficient promising material for the decontamination of different pollutants from wastewater. [Display omitted] •Silica coated soya waste was prepared and.•Maximum dyes removal was achieved within 15 min of contact time.•Modified adsorbent showed excellent fit for both pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir model.•The adsorbent can ensure the good extraction efficiencies after adsorption-desorption cycles.