Development of immobilized microcrystalline cellulose as an effective adsorbent for methylene blue dye removal

Abstract

This article presents the work done on the utilization of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) extracted from oil palm fronds (OPF) as a renewable and novel adsorbent. Poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) and epoxidized natural rubber-50 (ENR-50) were used for the immobilization of MCC/ENR/PVC on the glass substrate to evaluate in a fabricated glass cell. It was revealed that the adsorption of MB dye with immobilized OPF MCC gives a maximum adsorption capacity, qmax of 12.85 mg g−1 in Langmuir isotherm. It was proposed that monolayer adsorption occurred at the homogenous surface of the immobilized OPF MCC. Besides, the adsorption process dominant physisorption that was verified by the Gibbs free energy of adsorption (ΔG°). Meanwhile, the adsorption kinetic studies revealed the coefficient of determination in Elovich model was fitted moderately resulted in physisorption, even though the experimental data was corresponded to pseudo-second order kinetic model. Additionally, the intra-particle effect was observed to be more significant at high concentration, which was shown in the increment of the rate constant with initial dye concentration. This study indicates that immobilized OPF MCC has the potential as a green adsorbent and offered the unique advantage of convenient use.