Effective Removal of Indigo Carmine in Aqueous Solutions using a Low-Cost Adsorbent Developed from Corn Husk Waste: Synthesis, Batch, and Optimization Studies

Acid-activated corn husk waste (CHW) was used to investigate the adsorption mechanism of Indigo Carmine (IC) dye from an aqueous solution. The effect of different operating parameters such as pH (1-7), initial IC dye concentration (40-400 mg/L), contact time (5-75 min), and heating temperature (25–200 °C) was measured on the removal of IC dye by the CHW. The maximum uptake of IC dye was observed at an initial pH of 2. The maximum capacity of 13.57 mg/g and the maximum dye removal of 89.01 % in wastewater. The adsorbents were characterized using Fourier Transforms Infrared Spectrophotometry (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis, X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), and Thermogravimetry Analysis. The characterization process reveals the differences in adsorbent characteristics before and after the adsorption processes. The Langmuir showed the best fitting (R2 = 0.977) and described multilayer adsorption on diverse surfaces. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model best correlated with the experimental data (R2 = 0.981). Thermodynamics revealed that adsorption was favorable spontaneous and exotherm. The study's results indicated that using CHW as a low-cost adsorbent to treat IC dye was efficient and beneficial to the environment.