Ultrasonic assisted synthesis of Kaolin/CuFe2O4 nanocomposite for removing cationic dyes from aqueous media

In this study, a new nanocomposite of kaolin/copper iron oxide (CuFe2O4) was synthesized and its characteristics were determined using various analyzes such as FTIR, SEM, XRD, BET, VSM, and EDX/Mapping. According to the results, the specific surface areas of kaolin and kaolin/CuFe2O4 composite were obtained as 10.023 and 174.78 m(2)/g, respectively, which indicated a significant specific surface area for kaolin/CuFe2O4 nanocomposite. The nanocomposite was then used to remove cationic dyes of methylene blue (MB) and methyl violet (MV) from an aqueous media in a batch system. The results demonstrated that the best conditions for adsorption of MB and MV dyes occurred at pH: 8, with an adsorbent concentration of 1.5 g/L, the initial dye concentration of 10 mg/L, the contact time of 30 min, and a temperature of 25 degrees C. Under the optimal conditions, the removal efficiency of MB and MV dyes using kaolin/CuFe2O4 nanocomposite were obtained as 98.64 % and 99.25 %, respectively, which show the highest removal ever achieved for MB and MV. Also, the highest sorption capacity of MB and MV dyes using Langmuir model were obtained as 120.48 and 117.65 mg/g, respectively, which show the highest adsorption capacity ever achieved for MB. Moreover, the reusability of the adsorbent was studied and the results showed that that adsorbent could be successfully used in the removal of MB and MV dyes after seven cycles of adsorption/desorption. Furthermore, the thermodynamic study showed that the sorption process was exothermic.