Novel, facile, and fast technique for synthesis of AgCl nanorods loaded on activated carbon for removal of methylene blue dye

Abstract

This article introduces a novel, facile, and simple technique for synthesis of AgCl nanorods modified activated carbon (AgCl-NRs-AC) for the first time as a new sorbent for removal of hazardous methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution. Different characterization methods including field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and response surface methodology (RSM) were applied to examine the removal of MB by AgCl nanorods loaded on activated carbon as a new sorbent. A quadratic model was used to predict the variables. Central composite design (CCD) was used for the evaluation of adsorption parameters effect such as pH, adsorption dose, initial dye concentration, and contact time on the percentage removal of MB dye from aqueous solution. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) exhibited a high R2 value of 0.9900, high F-value (105.79), very low P-value, and non-significant lack of fit demonstrating good correlation between experimental and predicted values of the response. The optimum conditions were determined to be pH=7, adsorbent dose=15mg, initial dye concentration 25mgL−1, and contact time of 16min. Under the optimum conditions, the maximum removal of MB dye was 96.01670% with satisfactory desirability of 0.978. The effect of variables were examined and discussed by depicting three dimensional (3D) and contour (2D) plots to analyze the changes and the predicted responses. Results revealed that Langmuir and pseudo-second-order models were the best models for describing the adsorption process. Antibacterial activity of the synthesized nanorods were also evaluated by testing against some Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. The synthesized nanorods showed effective bactericidal activity.