Ni and Zn modified acid activated montmorillonite clay for effective removal of carbol fuchsin dye from aqueous solution

The present work aims to investigate efficiency of zinc and nickel modified acid activated montmorillonite clay to remove carbol fuchsin dye from aqueous solution. The synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by TEM, SEM-EDAX, XRD, FT-IR and UV-Vis techniques. The adsorption of dye increased with increase in pH obeying pseudo-second-order rate kinetics and rapidly degraded (94%) alkaline dye solution in 90 min confirmed by LC-MS analysis. Zinc modified clay had slight edge due to high adsorption capacity and 3.24 eV band gap energy. Scavenger study confirmed participation of O-2(-center dot) in degradation mechanism and reusability experiments confirmed stability of nanocomposites for multiple cycle. [GRAPHICS] .