A comparative and comprehensive study on robust silver-immobilized chitosan/carboxy methyl chitosan macromolecules for elimination of dyes

Abstract

This study explores the potential of modified chitosan (CH) resulting from carboxy methyl (CM) group substitution in the chitosan skeleton, producing carboxy methyl chitosan (CMCH). Silver (Ag) was loaded to chitosan and modified chitosan (carboxy methyl substituted chitosan) supported on cellulose filter paper (FP) to tailor organic–inorganic macromolecule composites “Ag-Chi/CFP and Ag-CMCH/CFP” further applied as substantial composite for the reductive removal of methyl orange (MO) and rhodamine B (RB) dyes from wastewater. The synthesized catalyst was characterized via FTIR, 1H NMR, XRD, and SEM analysis. The degree of substitution was also measured, which was approximately 0.85. The reductive elimination efficiency of Ag-CMCH/CFP and Ag-Chi/CFP for MO dye was 95.31% and 88.85 %. In comparison, the elimination of RB was 98.28 and 94.04 %, respectively, in 16 min time, 0.6 mM Ag concentration, 40 mg/L, dye concentration and 0.3 M NaBH4 concentration. The synthesized catalysts were recycled three times. The degradation of MO and RB dyes using Ag-CMCH/CFP and Ag-Chi/CFP catalysts can be described by the first-order kinetic model. The determination coefficients (R2) and rate constants (k) values for MO degradation were found to be 0.9934 and 0.1736 s−1 for Ag-CMCH/CFP, and 0.9242 and 0.1001 s−1 for Ag-Chi/CFP, respectively. Similarly, for RB degradation, the R2 values were 0.9866 for Ag-CMCH/CFP and 0.9803 for Ag-Chi/CFP, with corresponding k values of 0.219 s−1 and 0.1548 s−1, respectively. The degradation process was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) to determine the optimal conditions for maximum dye removal efficiency. The RSM models were statistically significant, as validated by ANOVA and correlation coefficient values. The F values of MO and RB models are significant as they have 2450.15 and 21999.37, respectively. The P value for both was <0.0001.