Functionalized PVA film with good adsorption capacity for anionic dye

Abstract The dye‐water treatment by polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is still a challenge as PVA is characterized by its strong affinity to water. Therefore, this study aims to fabricate a functional PVA film with good regeneration ability to remove anionic dyes from aqueous solution using polyamidoamine dendrimers (PAMAM) as a modifier and epichlorohydrin as a cross‐linker. Solution casting technique was applied to prepare the functionalized film. The adsorption efficiency of the film was evaluated by studying the effect of various parameters such as PAMAM loading (0, 12.5, 25, 50 wt%), initial dye concentration, film dose, solution pH, and adsorption time. The adsorption studies showed that with increasing PAMAM loading, the maximum adsorption capacity of the resulting film increased till it reached up to 73.8 mg/g by the PVA film with 50 wt% PAMAM. For understanding the nature of the adsorption process of the prepared film, the kinetics and isotherm analysis were studied. It was found that the mechanism of dye removal by the prepared film followed pseudo‐second‐order kinetic and Freundlich isotherm, respectively. The adsorption and regeneration studies indicated that this film has great potential to effectively remove anionic dye from wastewater.