Simultaneous adsorption of methylene blue and heavy metals from water using Zr-MOF having free carboxylic group

Industrial effluents contain multiple pollutants, which affect the quality of water remediation operations. Hence, it is important to understand the outcome of the multicomponent adsorption system to develop efficient decontamination process. In this work, acid assisted hydrothermal method (reflux temperature at atmospheric pressure) was employed to synthesize zirconium based metal-organic framework (MOF) and utilized for the adsorptive removal of methylene blue (MB) dye and heavy metals (lead and cadmium) from aqueous solution. The adsorbent was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), which confirms the face centered cubic (FCC) crystal structure similar to previously reported UiO-66. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) and surface area analysis shows that, the MOF has surface area of 505 m2.g−1 and micropores ranging from 0.4 to 0.7 nm. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis corroborate the presence of free carboxylic groups at 1710 cm−1, apart from this FTIR confirms the presence of regular bands of metal-carboxylic bonds. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of the adsorbent was conducted to understand the nature of adsorbate-adsorbent interaction and to confirm the loading of metal ions on adsorbent after adsorption. The morphological nature of the MOF was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Effects of various parameters such as pH, adsorbent dosage, adsorption time and effect of initial concentration of adsorbates on adsorption were evaluated. Kinetics and isotherm studies were conducted to understand the nature and extent of adsorption. Langmuir monolayer adsorption capacity of the adsorbent for cadmium, lead and methylene blue were found to be 37 mg.g−1, 100 mg.g−1 and 169 mg.g−1 respectively.