The superior adsorption capacity of phenol from aqueous solution using Modified Date Palm Nanomaterials: A performance and kinetic study

Abstract

This work investigates the prospective usage of dried Date palm fibers (DPF) and amino silica modified Date palm fibers nanomaterials (Si-DPF) for phenol removal from water. We studied the characteristics of both dried DPF and Si-DPF nanomaterials based on their composition and morphology. The characterization includes diverse types of instruments such as Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). Batch mode experimentations were continued and studied utilizing various significant factors such as the dose of adsorbent, solution pH, contact time, and the initial quantity of phenol molecules as a pollutant. Under optimum conditions (pH: 7.00, adsorbent dose: 2.00 g/L, initial concentration of phenol: 100 ppm and contact time: 24 h), the maximum adsorption capacities were calculated to be 19.57 and 31.25 mg/g for DPF and Si-DPF respectively. Further, to study the mechanism of the adsorption process of the under-investigated toxic molecules on the active sites of the nanomaterials, we introduced kinetic models involving pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and models based on intra-particle diffusion. To study the equilibrium isotherms, the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms were considered, and the Langmuir isothermal model (R 2 ≈ 0.997 and 0.984 for DPF and Si-DPF respectively) which largely deals with the results of the experiments achieved.