Fabrication of Curcumin Grafted Aramid Nanofibers-Based Aerogel Films: Dyes Removal from Contaminated Effluents with High Adsorption Capacity and Antimicrobial Characteristics

The textile and chemical industries generate dyes wastewater with full of pollutants, which is very crucial to treat before discharging to the environment for public health safety. In this study, we have successfully prepared novel Cur/ANFs aerogel films by vacuum filtration and freeze–drying method to follow the in situ modification of aramid nanofibers (ANFs) with natural carbohydrate polymer curcumin (Cur) to perform as an antibacterial material and adsorbent for removal of MG dye and metallic ions from aqueous media. The surface morphological properties were studied through SEM, EDS, XPS, FTIR, and XRD analysis. Further, TGA analysis shows the thermal stability of films, while films exhibit a moderate reduction in tensile strength upon addition of curcumin. In addition, 1.0-Cur/ANFs aerogel film exhibits an excellent antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E.coli as compared to all films. Moreover, the parameters such as equilibrium time, adsorbent dose rate (5–20 mg) at fixed MG dye concentrations were determined to adsorption capacity of films. The results revealed that the pseudo-2nd-order kinetic model was fitted to adsorption mechanism with correlation coefficients (R² > 0.90). In addition, the 20 mg adsorbent of 1.0-Cur/ANFs aerogel film after 120 min contact time in MG dye solution have excellent adsorption capacity (93.68%) as compared to all samples. The adsorbent 1.0-Cur/ANFs aerogel film have high metallic (Cu; 5.82%, Zn; 2.33%, Pt; 3.11%) ions removal efficiency as compare to pure ANFs aerogel film (Cu; 0.03%, Zn; 0.01%, Pt; 2.75%). Further, the findings on reusability shows that adsorbent 1.0-Cur/ANFs aerogel film after 5th cycle still exhibit excellent (73.08%) adsorption capacity of Mg dye without deformation as compare to pure ANFs aerogel film (52.67%). Consequently, the inclusion of curcumin in ANFs is more suitable and cost-effective approach for removal of MG dye and our prepared 1.0-Cur/ANFs aerogel film is a promising candidate for purification of water and public health safety.

Graphical Abstract