Dye adsorption into transition metal-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles supported on natural zeolites to solve wastewater issue

Abstract

In this work, Fe-doped zinc oxide/natural zeolite (Fe:ZnO/NZ) nanocomposites were prepared using the co-precipitation method with various NZ amounts. The nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The nanocomposites were used to remove methylene blue (MB) dye from an aqueous solution. The effect of various NZ amounts and initial MB concentration were tested. The Pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models were used to explain the adsorption mechanism. The Langmuir and the Freundlich isotherm models were used to fit the adsorption isotherms of the nanocomposites.