Investigation of Magnetic Silica Nanocomposite Immobilized Pseudomonas fluorescens as a biosorbent for the effective sequestration of Rhodamine B from aqueous systems

Abstract In the current research work, a novel eco-friendly Fe3O4@SiO2 nanocomposite immobilized with Pseudomonas fluorescens biomass in calcium alginate beads (MSAB) was used as biosorbent for the elimination of hazardous Rhodamine B dye from aqueous system. The FTIR, XRD and SEM results showed that the MSAB possessed excellent surface properties for the effective sequestration of Rhodamine B. The batch adsorption results concluded that the adsorption of Rhodamine B using MSAB is highly influenced by the parameters such as pH, adsorbent dosage, initial dye concentration and contact time. The equilibrium and kinetics data get best fitted in the Freundlich isotherm and Pseudo first order kinetics for the studied adsorption system. The Langmuir monolayer adsorption capacity was found to be 229.6 mg/g. The thermodynamic studies showed that the adsorption was spontaneous, feasible and exothermic in nature. The adsorption mechanisms are understood using the Intraparticle diffusion and Boyd model. Thus, this Magnetic silica alginate beads (MSAB) containing dead biomass of Pseudomonas fluorescens is considered to be an ideal biosorbent which can be used as an effective tool in treating the industrial dye wastewater treatment.