Gum ghatti and acrylic acid based biodegradable hydrogels for the effective adsorption of cationic dyes

This article reports biosorption properties of Gum ghatti and acrylic acid based graft co-polymers for the adsorption of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B (RhB). Gg-cl-PAA removed 99% MB and 98% RhB from the respective dye solutions. Adsorption isotherm followed Langmuir isotherm with maximum adsorption capacity of 909.09 mg/g (MB) and 819.67 mg/g (RhB). Both the dyes followed pseudo second order rate equation. Eco-friendliness of Gg-cl-PAA was studied by assessing its susceptibility to biodegradation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and mineral salt medium (MSM). Gg-cl-PAA degraded faster in PBS (18%) than MSM (15.1%) using P. aeruginosa. (C) 2014 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.