A nanocellulose from sugarcane bagasse as a template for nickel oxide nanoparticles for removal of organic dyes from aqueous solution

Abstract

The aquatic ecosystem is negatively impacted by organic dye contamination, which is now one of the factors leading to environmental pollution. The present investigation involved the synthesis of nanocellulose (NC) and nanocellulose modified with NiO (NC/NiO) composite using acid hydrolysis and a one-step precipitation technique for NC and NiO, respectively. Malachite green (MG) dye was catalytically removed from an aqueous solution using the two products, which were mechanically homogenized. The produced materials were examined using different characterization techniques, like FTIR, BET, Uv-vis, XRD, SEM-EDX, and TGA. The characterization findings showed the homogeneous distribution of NiO on the NC. With MG dye serving as the model dye, an experiment was conducted to determine the catalyst’s catalytic removal ability. The catalytic degradation experiments validated the significance of NiO and the high catalytic activities of the synthesized NC/NiO composite toward the breakdown of MG dye. The kinetic study of catalytic malachite green (MG) dye removal is well-described by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. After five reuse cycles, high removal efficiency was noted, demonstrating the composite’s remarkable stability and reusability. As a result, it was determined that the NC/NiO composite was a suitable catalyst for the degradation of a dye (MG) from the aqueous solution in the presence of H 2 O 2 , with an apparent rate constant, kapp, greater than 0.519 min −1 and a catalytic efficiency of material by 10 mg catalyst was higher than 99% within 11 min at 48℃. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-024-81403-0.