Effect of electrostatic interaction on the methylene blue and methyl orange adsorption by the pristine and functionalized carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were functionalized with cysteamine groups by several percentage of mass as adsorbents, then kinetics adsorption capacity was investigated for methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) as anionic and cationic dyes adsorbate molecules, respectively. The effect of temperature (from 283 to 303K), contact time and initial concentration of the MB and MO dyes in a solution (10 to 40ppm) was considered. The optimal contact time was found to be about 60min. Some kinetics model such as pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, intra-particle diffusion and the Elovich were tested. The adsorptions of MB dye on the pristine and functionalized MWCNT surfaces were found to be the intra-particle diffusion and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, respectively and for adsorption of MO dye by the pristine and low functionalized MWCNTs and highly functionalized tubes, found to be the pseudo-second-order and intra-particle diffusion kinetic model, respectively, based on the chi-square statistic (X2) and also high correlation coefficient (R2) values.