Analysis, construction, characterization, and application of copper nanowires loaded on activated carbon for removal of bromophenol blue in water samples

Abstract

In the present work, a copper nanowire loaded on activated carbon (Cu-NW-AC) was fabricated and applied as an effective adsorbent for the removal of bromophenol blue (BPB) dye from aqueous solutions and then the percentage of removal was evaluated by UV–Vis spectrophotometer. The synthesized adsorbent was characterized and identified using techniques like Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET). The effective parameters of the removal process were investigated and optimized by experimental design methodology (EDM) based on response surface methodology (RSM) as a powerful optimization method. EDM is a unique method for following the effects of different factors on the removal process simultaneously. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used based on p-values and F-tests to investigate the accuracy and reliability of the used method. The optimized parameters were obtained as BPB concentration of 15 mg L-1, ultrasonic irradiation time of 14 min, adsorbent dosage of 0.018 g and pH= 5.5 under the desirability function. To evaluate the adsorption mechanism and calculation of maximum adsorption capacity, different adsorption isotherms were studied and according to the results, the Langmuir isotherm model showed the highest compatibility due to its higher R2 (0.9905). Also, the proposed adsorbent represented good adsorption capacity (123.45 mg g-1).