Unraveling the Decontamination Potential of Synozol Yellow Dye from Wastewater by Cobalt Ferrite Nanoparticles and their Composite with Bark of Ficus religiosa

Abstract

One of the greatest sources of industrial wastewater is the textile industry which produces effluents that are rich in persistent dyes, high chemical oxygen demand, and complex salts and organic compounds mixtures. The reactive dyes, including Synozol Yellow, are some of these pollutants that are hazardous to the environment and health in that they are not biodegradable and they may produce intermediates which are toxic. Cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) nanoparticles and their complex with Ficus religiosa bark-based biochar were produced and tested in this study with regard to their capacity to decontaminate dye-contaminated waste water.

The production of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles was done through a co-precipitation technique and the composite material was produced through a hydrothermal technique with the addition of biochar as a support media. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to describe the characteristics of the materials, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) were used to confirm the existence of the functional groups, the porous morphology, and the elemental composition that would be favorable to adsorption process. Experiments of batch adsorption were performed to examine the operational parameters such as pH, dosage of adsorbent, initial dye concentration and contact time.

The findings revealed that the performance of dye removal was extremely affected by pH with the most favorable performance at around pH 6. A higher dosage of adsorbent increased the dye removal because of the availability of more active sites but a change in the dye concentration and contact time affected the adsorption behavior. It was shown that the composite material showed better adsorption ability than that of the isolated components due to the synergistic actions between magnetic nanoparticles and biomass-derived functional groups. Also, cobalt ferrite magnetic nature allowed easy separation and reuse of the adsorbent.

In general, it can be concluded that CoFe2O4 nanoparticles and Ficus religiosa biocomposite of nanoparticles are a promising, inexpensive, and green method of removing reactive dyes in wastewater, and may have implications in multifaceted textile effluent treatment procedure.