CoFe2O4@Methylcellulose/AC as a New,Green, and Eco-friendly Nano-magnetic adsorbent for removal of Reactive Red 198 from aqueous solution

Methylcellulose (MC) is the most common commercial cellulose ether and the most attractive biopolymer due to its cheap cost of biodegradability, biocompatibility, hydrophilicity, and lack of toxicity. In this study, CoFe₂O₄@MC/activated carbon (AC) was synthesized as a unique magnetic nano-adsorbent in the presence of MC biopolymer for Reactive Red 198 (RR198) dye removal. The nano-magnetic adsorbent was characterized by FESEM (Field emission scanning electron microscopy), EDS (Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy), Mapping, Linescan, BET (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller), FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy), XRD (X-Ray Diffraction), and VSM (Vibrating-Sample magnetometer). For simple separation by external magnetic fields, the Ms value was 57.91 emu/g. According to XRD analysis, the nano-adsorbent maintains its crystal structure, with an average crystal size of 11 nm. The maximum removal efficiencies of RR198 for synthetic and real wastewater samples under optimal conditions (an initial concentration of 10 mg/L, pH 3, contact time of 10 min, nanocomposite dose of 1.5 g/L, and a temperature of 25 °C) were 92.2% and 78%, respectively. The adsorption experiments were fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm (R² = 0.989) and pseudo-second-order kinetic (R² = 0.995). The values of entropy changes (ΔS = 35.087 kJ/mol.k), enthalpy changes (ΔH = -9.862 kJ/mol), and negative Gibbs free energy changes (ΔG) showed that the adsorption process was exothermic. Finally, the reusability findings showed that after six recovery cycles, the efficiency decreased slightly (90.1%). In the end, it can be concluded that the prepared CoFe₂O₄@Methylcellulose/AC can be used as an efficient adsorbent for the removal of RR198 from an aqueous solution.