In the present investigation, brown
clay (BC) was modified with
didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB) to produce a sorbent (DDAB-BC),
which was characterized and applied for sorption of methylene blue
(MB) from aqueous media. BC was functionalized using DDAB by cation
exchange of the DDAB moiety with positive ions existing inside the
interlayer spaces of the BC. X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies confirmed
that the
d
-spacing of DDAB-BC became wider (3.39
Å) than that of BC (3.33 Å). Fourier transform infrared
spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were exploited
to explore the functional groups and morphological structure of sorbents,
respectively. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface
area, pore volume, and pore diameter of DDAB-BC were determined as
124.6841 m
2
/g, 0.316780 cm
3
/g, and 8.75102 nm,
respectively. Batch sorption investigations were carried out to determine
the optimum experimental conditions, using the one-factor one-time
procedure. The sorption of MB on DDAB-BC strongly obeyed the Langmuir
isotherm and agreed well with pseudo-second-order kinetics. Sorption
of MB onto DDAB-BC showed maximum efficiency (∼98%) and maximum
sorption capacity (∼164 mg/g) at optimal values of pertinent
factors: dye concentration (100 mg/L), pH (7), and temperature (55
°C). Sorption isothermal studies predicted that removal of MB
on DDAB-BC follows multilayer sorption at higher MB dye concentrations
and monolayer sorption at lower MB dye concentrations.