Biosorptive removal of malachite green from aqueous solution using chemically modified brown marine alga Sargassum swartzii

Sargassum swartzii, marine macro brown alga, showed a high malachite green (MG) biosorption capacity in batch mode of operation. The analytical evidence from Fourier transform infrared spectra confirmed the involvement of amine group in the biosorption of MG and electrostatic interaction type of mechanism was proposed to occur between the amine group of dye and the cationic MG dye solution. Scanning electron micrograph shows the morphological features and the attachment of dye onto the biosorbent. pH edge experiment shows that biosorption capacity was maximum at pH 10. The effect of biosorbent concentration, pH, temperature, adsorption time was studied for the biosorption of MG using S. swartzii. Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin models were used to describe the isotherm data, of which Langmuir model described the isotherm data with high coefficient of determination R-2 = 0.999. The maximum dye uptake of 111.1 mg/g was reported at pH 10 based on Langmuir model. Kinetics and temperature profiles were evaluated and reported. Desorption study was carried out with 0.1 M HCl. Efforts were also made to continuously treat MG bearing wastewater using up-flow packed column. Investigations proved that S. swartzii is an excellent biosorbent for the sequestration of MG in aqueous media.