Fabrication of green polymeric hybrid materials for batch and column adsorption study of Blue-XGRRL dye

Pollution of water is mainly due to industrial wastewater. In current research work, Blue-XGRRL dye removal using green hybrid materials was optimized via batch and column study. The characterization study of prepared materials was carried out via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectroscopy, and thermal analysis. The pH for maximum adsorption capacity of wheat straw (WS), wheat straw-zinc oxide-polythiophene (WS-ZnO-PTh), wheat straw-zinc oxide-polyaniline (WS-ZnO-PANI), and wheat straw-zinc oxide-polypyrrole (WS-ZnO-PPY) was determined to be 10 (14.6 mg g −1 ), 10 (31 mg g −1 ), 10 (37.8 mg g −1 ), and 11 (43.9 mg g −1 ) correspondingly and optimum dosage was determined to be 0.05 g/50 mL. The highest adsorption potential for all hybrid materials was achieved within a time duration of 60 min and highest adsorption potential for WS (30.7 mg g −1 ), WS-ZnO-PTh (43.8 mg g −1 ), WS-ZnO-PANI (55.8 mg g −1 ), and WS-ZnO-PPy (66.8 mg g −1 ) was obtained utilizing 100 mg L −1 dye at 30 °C. The data obtained through adsorption experiments presented the best fitness to pseudo-second-order kinetics and Langmuir sorption isotherm giving significant R 2 values of 0.94–0.99 and 0.994–0.9994 respectively. Thermodynamic study showed exothermic nature of sorption. During column approach, optimal adsorbent bed height, dye flow rate, and inlet initial dye concentration to attain highest adsorption (30 mg g −1 ) were determined to be cm, 1.8 mL min −1 , and 70 mg L −1 respectively indicating these materials a good alternative for dye removal. Graphical Abstract