Preparation and adsorption behavior for brilliant blue X-BR of the cost-effective cationic starch intercalated clay composite matrix

In order to increase the adsorption capacity of cationic starch and avoid the loss of cationic groups, novel and cost-effective cationic starch (CS) intercalated clay composite matrix was prepared by controlling the weight ratio of clay and CS. Intercalated microstructure of the composite matrix was characterized by FTIR and XRD, respectively. Reactive dye (brilliant blue X-BR) was used to study adsorption behaviors of the matrix under various parameters such as weight ratio of clay to CS, initial dye concentration, contact time and temperature. Adsorption equilibrium, thermodynamics and kinetics models were further investigated. The results showed that the adsorption capacity increased greatly with increasing the weight ratio of clay to CS from 0.1 to 0.2, and then decreased when the weight ratio up to 0.3. The adsorption isotherm fitted well with the Langmuir isotherm model with a maximum adsorption capacity of 122.0 mg/g. Kinetic study showed that the pseudo-second-order model provided a better correlation of experimental data. Furthermore, the thermodynamic parameters were also calculated.