Adsorptive potential of maize tassel-ethyl acrylate biopolymer embedded magnetic nanohybrid towards the removal of cd(ii) from aqueous solution: An experimental design methodology.

Abstract

A novel maize tassel-ethyl acrylate biopolymer embedded magnetic nanohybrid (MTEA-MN) was designed for the adsorption of Cd (II) in batch experiments. Copolymerization parameters such as solvent amount, initiator concentration, monomer concentration, temperature and reaction time on grafting percentage were optimized. Characterization of the adsorbent was byFourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The effect of pH, contact time, initial concentration and adsorbent dosage and their interaction influence on Cd(II) adsorption on was investigated using response surface methodology following a central composite design (CCD). The optimum removal (95.26%) was obtained at pH 3.5, contact time 240 min, adsorbent dosage 0.53 g and initial concentration 44.6 mg/Lusing the GRG non-linear solving method on Excel solver. The data best fitted the non-linear Langmuir adsorption model with greaterR2(0.998) smaller sum of square deviation (SSD) value (1.6956) relative to Freundlich model with R2= 0.974 and SSD = 2.8786. The maximum sorption capacity of the MTEA-MN for Cd (II) was 459.37 mg/g. Kinetics studies revealed that the adsorption process followed the pseudo-second order model (lowest sum of square error (SSE) values and correlation coefficients (R2) >0.9). The calculated thermodynamic parameters showed that the adsorption process was feasible, spontaneous and endothermic in nature. Consequently, the present study demonstrated that MTEA-MN could be used as an adsorbent for the removal of Cd (II) ions from aqueous solutions.