Montmorillonite clay/starch/CoFe2O4 nanocomposite as a superior functional material for uptake of cationic dye molecules from water and wastewater

In this research, montmorillonite clay (MC) was magnetically modified by starch and cobalt-ferrite (CoFe2O4) (MC/starch/CoFe2O4) and then used to eliminate methyl violet (MV) and methylene blue (MB) dyes from water. The materials swere characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM/EDX/Map, VSM, BET and TEM analyses. Also, central composite design (CCD) method was employed to optimize the effective factors on the uptake process. The utmost sorption efficiency using the MC/starch/CoFe2O4 nanocomposite were obtained 98.67% (MB) and 99.45% (MV), respectively, indicating significant sorption efficiencies. Also, the utmost sorption capacity of MV using MC, MC/CoFe2O4 and MC/starch/CoFe2O4 nanocomposite were 29.76, 34.79 and 43.95 mg/g, respectively, and the utmost sorption capacity of MB using these sorbents were 31.96, 36.91 and 47.51 mg/g, respectively. Among the studied models, the sorption data were more consistent with the pseudo-1st order kinetic (R2 > 0.99). Furthermore, the uptake of dyes using the nanocomposite was physical, favorable, and exothermic. Also, MC/starch/CoFe2O4 nanocomposite was able to clean textile wastewater (efficiency: 70%)