Chemrj 2017 02 03 01 10
Chemrj 2017 02 03 01 10
Chemrj 2017 02 03 01 10
ISSN: 2455-8990
Research Article CODEN(USA): CRJHA5
Abstract In this study, the polypyrrole/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite as an efficient adsorbent was synthesized by two
steps. At first, zinc oxide/zinc chromite (ZnO/ZnCr2O4) composite was synthesized using simple and facile co-
precipitation method. Then, ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite was modified by polypyrrole (PPy). The adsorbent was
characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA). The PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4 compositeshowed excellent adsorption
properties towards Congo red (CR) than ZnO and ZnO/ZnCr 2O4 adsorbents. The adsorption studies have been
carried out for contact time, different pH values, different temperatures, and adsorbent doses. The investigation of
removal kinetics of CR indicates that the removal process obeys the rate of second-order kinetic equation. The
results indicate that the Langmuir adsorption isotherm fitted the data better than the Freundlich.
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adsorption of Congo red dye on the surface of PPy/ZnO/ZnCr 2O4 composite. Thus, the aim of this work is to study
the influence of PPy on adsorption characteristics of ZnO/ZnCr 2O4 composite.The synthesized composites were
characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron
microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA). Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to
investigate the effect of contact time, different pH values, different temperatures, and adsorbent doses. Two kinetic
models were also analyzed for the removal of Congo red on PPy/ZnO/ZnCr 2O4 composite.
NH2
- +
N SO3Na
N N
- +
SO3Na N
NH2
Scheme 1: The chemical structure of Congo Red
2. Experimental
All the analytical chemicals Cr(NO3)3.9H2O, Zn(NO3)2.6H2O, Zn(CH3COO)2.2H2O, sodium
dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS), Triton X-100, pyrrole, ammonium persulfate, sodium hydroxide and Congo red
dye were purchased from Merck and used without further purification. The structural analysis of the samples was
performed by powder X-ray Diffraction (Holland Philips Xpert, X-ray diffractometer with Cu-Kα radiation) and FT-
IR analysis using a Fourier transmission infrared spectrometer (JASCO FTIR-4200, Japan) in KBr pellet, in the
range of 4000-400 cm-1. The morphology of the samples was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, SEM
(VEGA3, TESCAN). The UV-Vis absorption spectra were recorded using a Shimadzu UV-2550 spectrophotometer.
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was sampled at regular intervals and the adsorbent was removed byCentrifugation. Then, the degree of adsorption
(X), as a function of time is given by X=(C◦-C)/C◦ where C◦ is the initial concentration of dye, and C the
concentration of dye at time t. The disappearance of peak at λ = 498 nm was chosen for monitoring of dye
adsorption for Congo red. For comparison, above experiments for the ZnO andZnO/ZnCr 2O4 samples were also
performed.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1.Characterization of the samples
Fig. 1 (a-c) shows the XRD patterns of ZnCr2O4, ZnO and PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4samples after annealed at 700 °C for 3
h respectively. The XRD results shows that the ZnCr 2O4 with cubic phase was obtained (JCPDS No. 22-1107), and
the distinctive peaks at 18.45°, 30.35°, 35.75°, 37.35°, 43.45°, 53.93° , 57.45° and 63.21° matched well with cubic
phase of ZnFeCr2O4(Fig.1(a)) [16]. The crystal phases corresponding to peaks at 31.8°, 34.4°, 36.3°, 47.5°, 68.0°,
and 69.1° are corresponded to ZnO (JCPDS No. 36-1451) (Fig.1(b)). In the XRD spectrum of PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4,
the peaks corresponding to the polypyrrole are not detected, indicating that polypyrrole was amorphous in
PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite (Fig.1(c)).
Fig.1 (a)
Fig.1(b)
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Fig.1(c)
Figure 1 (a-c): The XRD patterns of (a) ZnCr2O4, (b) ZnO/ZnCr2O4 and (c) /PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4.
The chemical structure of the PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite was confirmed by FT-IR analysis. In the FT-IR spectrum
of ZnO, the band at 436 cm-1 was ascribed to Zn-O stretching vibrations [18]. In the FT-IR spectrum of ZnCr2O4,
two characteristic peaks observed at around 513 and 625 cm-1 corresponds to octahedral-metal stretching and to
intrinsic stretching vibrations of the metal at the tetrahedral site, respectively [16].These bands indicate the
formation of spinel ZnCr2O4.The FT-IR spectrum of PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite,the band at 441 cm-1 confirmed
the presence of ZnO in prepared composite [19]. Also, some shift as compared to PPy confirmed that the PPy had
incorporated with ZnO and ZnCr2O4 successfully [20, 21]. From the results it can be inferred that the polymerization
was successfully carried out.The morphology of the ZnO, ZnO/ZnCr 2O4 and PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4is presented in Fig. 2
(a-c).
Figure 2 (a-c): The SEM images of (a) ZnO, (b) ZnO/ZnCr2O4 and (c) PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4
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Fig. 2 (a) shows that the morphology of the ZnO is nanoparticle and particle size is of about (30-100 nm). Fig. 2b for
the ZnO/ZnCr2O4 sample shows that the particles are quite polydispersed with a mean diameter of 213 nm. Fig. 2c
shows a PPy layer coated on mixed ZnO/ZnCr2O4particles.The EDAX analysis of the ZnO/ZnCr2O4 and
PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4samples sintered at 700 °C was performed along with its elemental analysis in order to check the
purity of sample. The EDAX analysis revealed that the entire samples synthesized without any impurities (Fig 3(a)
and (b)).
Based on the experimental results and analysis of the XRD, FTIR, SEM and EDAX it was found that the
PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite was obtained.
3.2. The adsorption behavior of Congo red on the PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4
In order to investigate the adsorption behaviors of the PPy/ZnO/ZnCr 2O4composite towards Congo red molecules,
dark adsorption experiments were carried out. The amount of dye adsorbed per gram of adsorbent (mg/g) at time t
(min) was calculated using the following equation [22]:
C 0 −C t V
qt = (1)
m
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Where qt (mgg−1) is the amount of adsorbed Congo red per gram of adsorbent at time t (min), C 0 is the initial
concentration of Congo red in solution (mgL-1), Ct is the concentration of dye (mgL-1) at time t (min), V is the
volume of the solution (L) and m is the mass of the adsorbent (g). The results of adsorption percentage versus time
for Congo red dye on the surface of samples indicate that 28, 40, 78 (%) of Congo red dye was adsorbed on the
ZnO,ZnO/ZnCr2O4 and PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4samples respectively. Fig. 4 represent the plots of the adsorption capacity
versus time of the ZnO, ZnO/ZnCr2O4and PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4.
Figure 4: Adsorption capacity of (a) PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4, (b) ZnO/ZnCr2O4 and (c) ZnO
As shown in Figure 4, the adsorption capacity of samples was detected as PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4 (80 mgg−1)
>ZnO/ZnCr2O4 (42 mgg−1) >ZnO (30 mgg−1).
3.3. Effect of pH
The initial pH of dye solution play an important role for adsorption process [23]. The effect of pH is studied between
4 and 9 because at strong acidic medium, the solution of Congo red changes its color from red to dark blue and the
original red color is different above pH 10. As shown in Fig.5, the maximum of removal efficiency on the surface of
PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4sample is achieved in the acidic medium (74%) and reduced at the basic medium (48%).
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In the acidic medium, the solution of Congo red exists as cationic form [24] and the adsorption of cation favorite at
pH>pHzp [25]. When transfer from acidic to basic medium, due to the electrostatic repulsion the removal efficiency
is reduced. Also, in the basic medium (pH = 10-12) there are competing between anionic dye and OH - in the basic
medium [26].
Figure 6: Plot ln(qe-qt) versus time (pseudo-first-order model) for the (a) ZnO/ZnCr2O4, (b) PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4and
(c) ZnO samples
Table 1: Results of Kinetic Study
𝐞𝐱𝐩
Sample 𝐪𝐞 (mg/g) Pseudo-first-order Pseudo-second-order
𝒌𝟏 (min-1) 𝒒𝒆𝟏 (mg/g) 𝑹𝟐 𝒌𝟐 (g/mg min) 𝒒𝒆𝟐 (mg/g) 𝑹𝟐
ZnO/ZnCr2O4 42 0.0009 1.09 0.6216 0.014 40 0.9993
PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4 80 0.0024 1.39 0.8037 0.0014 79 0.9922
ZnCr2O4 30 0.0018 2.8 0.8433 0.5309 29 0.9997
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Figure 7: Plot of t/qt versus time (pseudo-second-order model) for the (a) ZnO/ZnCr2O4, (b) PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4and
(c) ZnO samples.
4. Conclusion
In our study, PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4 composite was synthesized by easy and effective precipitation method and used as
adsorbent for Congo red removal from aqueous solution. The adsorption experiments indicated that the
PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite adsorbent have great dye removal efficiency with respect to ZnO and ZnO/ZnCr2O4.
Therefore, the low cost PPy/ZnO/ZnCr2O4composite is an efficient adsorbent for removal of anionic azo dyes in
industrial wastewater treatment.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Research Council of Payame Noor University for their financial supports.
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