Synthesis of a novel nanosilica-supported poly β-cyclodextrin sorbent and its properties for the removal of dyes from aqueous solution

beta-cyclodextrin, a type of molecule with a cavity structure and large number of hydroxyl groups, has great potential in water treatment, attributing to its highly adsorption ability. In this work, silica nanoparticles coated with beta-cyclodextrin (SiO2@beta-CD) as adsorbent have been successfully synthesized via distillation-precipitation polymerization. The composition, morphology and structure of SiO2@beta-CD nanoparticles were characterized by FTIR and TEM. The adsorption performance of SiO2@beta-CD nanoparticles were analyzed by the adsorption ability of bromophenol blue (BPB) and crystal violet (CV) in water solution. In addition, the dyes sorption processes have been thoroughly studied with both kinetic and equilibrium models. The results show that the adsorption rates for dyes is fast and the time evolution can be perfectly fitted using a pseudo-second-order kinetic model. The obtained maximum adsorption capacities exhibit an extremely good ability to remove dye at ambient temperature.