Turning date palm waste into carbon nanodots and nano zerovalent iron composites for excellent removal of methylthioninium chloride from water

Novel carbon nanodots (nCD-DBC) and nano zero-valent iron composites (nZVI-DBC) were synthesized using date palm waste-derived biochar (DBC). The synthesized materials were analyzed for chemical and structural composition by using FTIR, SEM, XRD, and TGA, and evaluated for their methylthioninium chloride dye (MB) removal efficiency from contaminated aqueous solutions. pH 7.0 was found optimum for the highest MB removal in sorption batch studies. Kinetics sorption of MB onto the sorbents was best described by pseudo-second-order (R² = 0.93–0.99) and Elovich models (R² = 0.86–0.97) implying that sorption was being controlled by chemisorption. Langmuir model predicted maximum sorption capacities for nCD-DBC, nZVI-DBC, and DBC were 1558.66, 1182.90, and 851.67 mg g⁻¹, respectively, which correlated with the results of kinetics sorption. Likewise, nCD-DBC yielded the highest partition coefficient (7067 mL g⁻¹), followed by nZVI-DBC (1460 mL g⁻¹), and DBC (930 mL g⁻¹). Post-sorption XRD, FTIR, and SEM analyses depicted the binding of MB onto the sorbents. It was suggested that electrostatic interactions, π–π electron donor-accepter interactions, degradation, and diffusion were responsible for MB removal by the synthesized materials. Therefore, the nCD-DBC, nZVI-DBC, and DBC can potentially be used for scavenging MB dye from contaminated aqueous solutions. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).