One-pot green synthesis of magnetic fullerene nanocomposite for adsorption characteristics

Plastic wastes and industrial effluents cause a huge potential risk on the environment and insequencly affect on the human health. Accordingly, this research proposed an innovative facile, green, one-step and solvent-free strategy to a large-scale synthesis of functionalized magnetic fullerene nanocomposite (FMFNc) via catalytic thermal decomposition of sustainable poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) bottle wastes as a feedstock and ferrocene as a catalyst and precursor of magnetite nanoparticles. The growth mechanism of FMFNc was discussed and supported by extensive characterization in addition to the adsorption reactivity toward cationic, Methylene Blue dye (MB), and anionic dyes, Acid Blue 25 dye (AB25), was tested. Furthermore, the Response Surface Methodology model (RSM) was used to develop an approach for the evaluation of dye adsorption process via investigation of the effect of three variables as dye concentration, time and temperature. Moreover, ten cyclic adsorption-desorption processes were conducted to study the regenerability and reuse of the prepared FMFNc. The adsorption mechanism was confirmed by the study of surface chemistry before and after adsorption and was attained mainly via electrostatic interaction, p-p stacking interaction and hydrogen bonding. The "wastes-treatwastes" idea was used to purify dye-contaminated wastewater and it was found that, the obtained FMFNc can be used as a promising alternative prospect of cheap adsorbent materials.