Adsorption of Methylene Blue onto Natural Rubber/Chitosan Blends

Abstract

Adsorption experiments were carried out for the removal of methylene blue (MB) cationic dye from its aqueous solution using natural rubber (NR)/chitosan (CS) blends as adsorbent. The results showed that chitosan has less adsorption capacity and introducing a small amount of chitosan could improve the adsorption capacity of natural rubber. A reduction in adsorption capacity is also observed for the vulcanized and maleic anhydride (MA) treated blends. Different isotherm models were applied to the experimental data in order to understand the mechanism of adsorption. It was found that a Langmuir equation is more suitable for the description of adsorption isotherm.

Keywords:

• chitosan
• compatibilization
• dye adsorption
• natural rubber
• polymer blends