Gum ghatti and Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles based nanocomposites for the effective adsorption of rhodamine B

This article reports the development of a new nanocomposite using gum ghatti crosslinked with poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide) reinforced with iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles. The nanocomposite was characterized through BET, FT-IR, XRD, SEM-EDX, TGA and TEM and applied for the removal of RhB. Different optimized adsorption parameters were adsorbent dose (0.8 g/L) and pH (7.0). The adsorption isotherm data was used to study Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin–Kaganer–Radushkevich isotherm models. The value of correlation coefficient confirmed the applicability of Langmuir isotherm model with maximum adsorption efficiency of 654.87 mg/g. The adsorption kinetics data showed pseudo second order reaction. Thermodynamic studies showed that the adsorption process was endothermic and spontaneous. Moreover, the adsorbent was successfully utilized for successive three cycles for the adsorption–desorption of RhB.