The efficient removal of pollutants from aqueous systems remains a significant challenge in environmental science and engineering, particularly when dealing with hazardous dyes commonly found in industrial wastewater. Our research described in this paper investigated the adsorption of the dye, Eriochrome Black T (EBT), a synthetic azo dye widely used in various industries, onto charged macrospheres based on polyglycidyl methacrylate-graft-polyvinyl chloride (P1). The macrospheres were prepared using the synthesized graft copolymer P1 by the phase inversion method and functionalized by quaternary hydrazine to introduce charged groups on the surface of these macrospheres, enhancing their affinity for the anionic EBT dye. The effects of initial dye concentration, contact time and temperature on the adsorption process were evaluated. Furthermore, adsorption isotherms and kinetic models were applied to elucidate the mechanism of this adsorption process. The results demonstrated that the experimental data of the adsorption process was well-fitted by the Langmuir model isotherm and the charged macrospheres exhibited excellent adsorption capacity for EBT. In the thermodynamic study the adsorption process was found to be exothermic and spontaneous at room temperature. Besides, the kinetics study revealed that the adsorption process was better described by the pseudo-second-order model (R2= 0.992) than the pseudo-first-order model (R2= 0.963), suggesting that chemisorption was the adsorption process. The mechanism of this adsorption was mainly based on electrostatic interactions and hydrogen bonding between the adsorbent and the adsorbate.
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