Acid-thermal Activated Nanobentonite as an Economic Industrial Adsorbent for Malachite Green from Aqueous Solutions. Optimization, Isotherm, and Thermodynamic Studies

The limited adsorption capacity of natural clays is a crucial and economic issue which confined their applications in industry as cheap adsorbents to remove toxic contaminants from wastewaters. Here, the adsorption capacity of a natural nano bentonite was enhanced by a simple acid and thermal activation and the manufactured nano-adsorbent was characterized by FESEM, BET, FT-IR, and XRD. Effects of pH, temperature, sorbent capacity, and the initial concentration of malachite green were examined. The isotherm behavior of the adsorption system was investigated by the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models. Also, the kinetic inspections demonstrated that the adsorption of malachite green matched with the pseudo-second-order kinetic and the obtained thermodynamic parameters H, S, and G showed that the adsorption of malachite green was a spontaneous and endothermic process. The results indicated that the acid-thermal activated nano bentonite, with an enhanced surface area of 220 m^2/g, can be depleted as a powerful and low-cost adsorbent to expel malachite green from aqueous solutions.