RADIATION SYNTHESIS OF CMC/AA HYDROGEL AND THEIR APPLICATION FOR THE TREATMENT OF METHYLENE BLUE

Abstract

The adsorption of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution was carried out by using hydrogel CMC/AA. Hydrogels were synthesized by grafting acrylic acid (AA) onto carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) using direct radiation grafting technique. The factors affecting the gel content and swelling behavior of the hydrogel were investigated. The result indicated that gel content of prepared hydrogel obtained maximum at the radiation dose of 30 kGy and increased with increased concentration of CMC. The swelling properties of hydrogels decreased with increased radiation dose. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to characterize the structure of the hydrogel. The influence of various experimental factors such as contact time, initial dye concentration and pH of dye solution was investigated. Maximum MB removal was observed at pH 8.0 and contact time of 150 min. In addition, the adsorption data fit well the Langmuir adsorption model with the maximum sorption capacity of 114.94 mg/g, and followed the pseudo-second-order kinetics.