Surface Modifications of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles with Polyvinyl Alcohol and Activated Charcoal as Methylene Blue Adsorbents

Abstract

As novel methylene blue adsorbents, polyvinyl alcohol and activated charcoal were used to modify the surface of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. The adsorption capacity after 69 h was 26.50 ± 0.99–40.21 ± 1.30 mg/g, depending on the temperature (333.15, 310.15, and 298.15 K) and the initial concentration of methylene blue, which was between 0.017 and 0.020 mg/mL. Based on thermodynamics parameters, the adsorption process can be considered to be spontaneous endothermic physisorption. Kinetics studies show that the pseudo-second-order model was the best-fitted model. Adsorption isotherm studies show that the best-fitted models were the Langmuir, Langmuir, and Temkin and Pyzhev isotherm models when adsorbing MB at 333.15, 310.15, and 298.15 K, respectively.

Keywords

• methylene blue
• isotherm
• kinetics
• magnetic activated carbon
• nanocomposites