article · Applied Water Science
Methylene blue is an aromatic dye that resists natural biodegradation due to its complex structure. To address this, chemically synthesised nano zero-valent aluminium was tested as a one-step treatment agent for removing the dye from water. Laboratory tests evaluated factors including acidity, material dosage, contact time, dye concentration, temperature, mixing speed, detergents, and salts. Under optimum conditions, the nanomaterial removed roughly 99 percent of the dye within 90 minutes. Adding inorganic salts enhanced removal performance, whereas the presence of detergents decreased it. Mathematical modelling showed that the process follows standard adsorption behaviours and is controlled by physical diffusion. In addition, an artificial neural network reliably predicted the treatment process, and an economic assessment estimated the scaling-up cost of the adsorption setup.
Textile dyes in wastewater pose serious environmental risks because their chemical structures make them hard to degrade naturally. Demonstrating that an aluminium-based nanomaterial can rapidly clear methylene blue from contaminated water, accompanied by predictable artificial intelligence modelling and an estimated operational cost, provides a clear basis for developing practical treatment systems for industrial wastewater.
This research is relevant to industrial wastewater treatment facilities, particularly within textile manufacturing. The technology remains at an applied, laboratory-tested stage, though the researchers evaluated practical operational parameters, used an artificial neural network to predict performance, and completed an early scale-up cost analysis. Real-world commercialisation will require testing the material on actual textile wastewater rather than synthetic laboratory solutions.
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Abstract Methylene blue (MB) is a heterocyclic aromatic dye that is difficult to biodegrade due to its complex chemical structure. In this study, chemically prepared nano zero-valent aluminum (nZVAl) was investigated for the first time for one-step removal of MB from aqueous solutions under different experimental factors (pH, dosage, time, MB concentration, stirring rate, temperature, detergents, and ionic strength). The prepared nZVAl material was characterized using XRD, TEM, SEM, EDS, and FTIR. Results indicated that at an initial MB concentration of 10 mg/L, pH 10, nZVAl dosage 1.0 g/L, stirring rate 200 rpm, and temperature 30 °C, the removal efficiency of approximately 99.0% was achieved within an equilibrium time of 90 min. An improvement in MB removal efficiency was observed in the presence of inorganic salts, while the presence of detergents resulted in a reduction in MB removal efficiency. The isotherm adsorption data were best fitted by the Freundlich isotherm model ( R 2 : 0.9569), while the kinetic data were well described by the pseudo-second-order (PSO) model ( R 2 : 0.9999). Based on the thermodynamic study, the MB adsorption process is physically diffusion-controlled. The adsorption of MB onto nZVAl was accurately described using an artificial neural network (ANN) with a structure of 11–10–1 and R 2 of 0.97. The overall cost of scaling up the adsorption unit to be used for MB removal from aqueous solutions under the optimum conditions is about US$1.31/m 3 . Consequently, this study opens the door for other researchers to test nZVAl in treating real textile wastewater.
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DOI: 10.1007/s13201-022-01837-7
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