Insights into adsorption performance and mechanism of chitosan-bentonite biocomposites for removal of imazethapyr and imazamox.

In the present study, chitosan-bentonite biocomposites were synthesised by ultrasonication, characterized using spectral techniques and assessed for their effectiveness in removing imazethapyr and imazamox from aqueous solution. The response surface methodology based box behnken design was utilized to generate optimum conditions viz. pH (1 to 9), adsorbent dose (0.01 to 1.0 g), contact time (0.5 to 48 h) and temperature (15 to 55 °C) for adsorption of herbicides on biocomposites. Based on model predictions, 60.4 to 91.5 % of imazethapyr and 31.7 to 46.4 % of imazamox was efficiently removed under optimal conditions. Adsorption data exhibited a strong fit to pseudo-second-order kinetic (R2 > 0.987) and Freundlich isotherm (R2 > 0.979). The adsorption capacity ranged from 3.88 to 112 μg1-ng-1mLn and order of adsorption was: low molecular weight chitosan-bentonite> medium molecular weight chitosan-bentonite> high molecular weight chitosan-bentonite> bentonite. Thermodynamic experiments suggested a spontaneous, exothermic process, reducing the system randomness during adsorption. Desorption experiments revealed successful desorption ranging from 91.5 to 97.0 % using 0.1 M NaOH. The adsorption mechanism was dominated by synergistic electrostatic interactions and hydrogen bonding. These results collectively indicated the potential environmental remediation application of chitosan-bentonite biocomposites to adsorb imazethapyr and imazamox from wastewaters.