CeO₂/Fe₃O₄/g-C₃N₄ nanohybrid for adsorptive removal of Rose Bengal from aqueous stream

ABSTRACT

Rose Bengal (RB) is a halogen-containing water-soluble dye that is frequently used for therapeutic purposes. The dye, on the other hand, is poisonous and may cause inflammation, stinging and other adverse reactions in eyes and skin of living beings as it comes in water resources with medical waste. As a reason, it is thought to be desirable to propose a systematic approach for removing or minimising the effect of RB dye via adsorption. Here in this work, a novel CeO₂/Fe₃O₄/g-C₃N₄ (CFC) nanocomposite has been synthesised by the co-precipitation-assisted hydrothermal method. The morphological and structural properties were studied by powder HRTEM, XRD, EDAX, FTIR and XPS, and also, the surface area of the CFC was measured by BET. UV-DRS was employed for the band gap calculation. This nanocomposite showed excellent adsorption properties for Rose Bengal (RB). The synthesised nanostructure exhibited a maximum adsorption capacity of 83.05 mgg⁻¹ for RB dye. Furthermore, the nanocomposite has shown adsorption efficiency close to 99% after being regenerated and reused up to five times. It followed pseudo-second-order kinetics and an isotherm best fit with the Langmuir model. Based on the adsorption studies and FTIR studies, it is confirmed that the hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions are the predominating factors for the adsorption process.

KEYWORDS:

• CeO₂/Fe₃O₄/g-C₃N₄
• heterojunction
• Rose Bengal dye
• nanosheet
• adsorption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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