A facile and green synthesis of corn cob-based graphene oxide and its modification with corn cob-K2CO3 for efficient removal of methylene blue dye: Adsorption mechanism, isotherm, and kinetic studies

In recent years, the treatment of synthetic dyes has become an environmental concern. In this study, a single step calcination process was used to develop the inventive, simple, and inexpensive adsorbent CC-GO/CC-K₂CO₃ composite. The composite was employed for the treatment of methylene blue (MB), a cationic dye. Several characterization methods including powder XRD, FTIR, XPS, BET, FESEM, EDX, Raman, and HRTEM techniques were utilized for the analysis of the composite. The surface area and mean pore diameter of CC-GO/CC-K₂CO₃ were 32.651 m² g⁻¹ and 3.71 nm, respectively. The adsorption experiment showed that optimal parameters for the removal of MB dye are at an adsorbent dose of 60 mg, initial dye concentration of 80 mg/L, contact time of 150 min, and pH value of 12 at room temperature. Under optimized conditions, CC-GO evidences a removal efficiency of 70.34 ± 1.36 % while after incorporation with CC-K₂CO₃ the removal capacity sharply increases up to 98.10 ± 0.4 %. Kinetic and isotherm models were used to analyze the removal rate constant and equilibrium adsorption capacity under various adsorption environments. The adsorption study was found to follow the models of pseudo-second order kinetic and Freundlich isotherm. The CC-GO/CC-K₂CO₃ composite has the maximum adsorption capacity (MAC) of 160.77 mg/g established by the Langmuir isotherm. The prepared composite has demonstrated the capacity to be recycled up to three times with a gradual decrease in its adsorption behavior, exhibiting removal efficiency of 61.66 ± 2.04 %.

A cost estimation study of the composite was also performed to assess its cost effectiveness.