Polyvinyl alcohol/Fe3O4@carbon nanotubes nanocomposite: Electrochemical-assisted synthesis, physicochemical characterization, optical properties, cytotoxicity effects and ultrasound-assisted treatment of aqueous based organic compound

In this research study, the polyvinyl alcoholFe(3)O(4)@carbon nanotubes (PVA/Fe3O4@CNTs) nanocomposite was prepared by electrochemical-assisted synthesis method, characterized by FT-IR, UV-vis, FE-SEM, TEM, BET and XRD techniques, and subsequently applied for the ultrasound-assisted removal of methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution and as antibacterial agent in vitro investigation against Proteus mirabilis (PM),Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Escherichia coli (E. Coli) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PAO1) bacteria. The effects of important variables such as the initial concentration of MB, adsorbent mass, sonication time and pH on the removal percentage of MB were investigated and optimized by central composite design (CCD). The experimental results were applied for the construction of a quadratic model to predict the response following the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and to obtain useful information about the possible interaction between the variables and their main effects. The high F-value (207.38), low P-value (<0.0001) and non-significant lack of fit (P-value > 0.05) along with the reasonable value of the coefficient of determination (R-2 = 0.99452) confirmed a good correlation between the experimental and predicted values. The highest removal percentage of 99.5% was attained at the optimum conditions of 0.035 g of the adsorbent, 25.0 mg L-1 of dye concentration, 6 min sonication time and pH = 5.5. The adsorption process of MB by PVA/3 wt% Fe3O4@CNTs was well described by pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm models. A low dose of PVA/Fe3O4@CNTs nanocomposite (0.005 g) was successfully used for the adsorption of MB (R%> 90.0%) within a short time (6.0 min) with the highest monolayer adsorption capacity of 250.10 mg g(-1) at 25 degrees C. (C) 2018 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.