Synthesis and Characterization of Chitosan/ZrO2 Nanocomposite and Its Application in the Removal of Rose Bengal Dye

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Nasr City, P.B. 11884, Cairo, Egypt

2 National research centre

3 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

The removal of Rose Bengal dye (RB) from aqueous solution was tested by the adsorption process at initial dye concentration in the range of 3–50 ppm. For this purpose, a novel and sustainable Chitosan/Zirconium oxide nanocomposite (CS/ZrO2 NCs) was prepared by incorporating Zirconium oxide nanoparticles (ZrO2 NPs) into Chitosan nanoparticles (CS NPs). The prepared CS/ZrO2 NCs samples were characterized by many spectral techniques such as XRD, FTIR, SEM, EDX and TEM. The adsorption conditions such as dye concentration, contact time and CS/ZrO2 mass ratios were optimized. The experimental data shows that CS/ZrO2 containing 30% of ZrO2 NPs (CS/ZrO2 (30%)) has the highest adsorption capacity for eliminating RB dye among all the prepared samples. The maximum dye removal efficiency increased from 46% for Chitosan to 78% for the sample containing 30% of ZrO2 in CS/ZrO2 NCs. Isotherm models such as Langmuir and Freundlich were analysed. Kinetic studies indicated that Freundlich isotherm and pseudo-second order models are the best fitting for our experimental results.

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