Recycling of pre-consumer viscose waste fibers for the removal of cationic dye from aqueous solution

Abstract

RECYCLING of textile waste materials has attracted significant attention for fabrication low-cost dye adsorbent from aqueous solutions. Viscose waste as cellulosic fibers are supposed to give an answer to finding low-cost adsorbent materials. In this research work, viscose fiber wastes (VF) were modified by selective oxidation to improve the ability of absorbing cationic dyes during wastewater treatment. For this purpose, different treatment parameters such as sodium periodate concentration, and time of selective oxidation with sodium chlorite were investigated. Then, unmodified and oxidized viscose fibers (OVF) were ball milled to produce viscose powder (VP) and oxidized viscose powder (OVP), respectively. The morphology of the obtained viscose powders was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, the adsorption of methylene blue(MB) onto viscose cellulose fiber waste and oxidized viscose fibers was studied as a function of contact time (0–80 min), adsorbent dosage (1–9 g/L), MB solution initial pH (3–9) and MB initial concentration (20–80 mg/L). The results showed that MB adsorption onto VP and OVP is a rapid and favorable chemisorption process that can be well described by Langmuir model. The higher adsorption ability of OVP than VP was related to increasing of the carboxylic group. The oxidized viscose fiber can be used as potential adsorbent for wastewater treatment.