Utilization of waste plastic pet bottles to prepare copper-1,4-benzenedicarboxylate metal-organic framework for methylene blue removal

ABSTRACT

The study aims to use waste plastic PET bottles to recover terephthalic acid for preparing copper-1,4-benzenedicarboxylate, which was then utilized as an adsorbent for removal of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions after carefully characterizing by XRD, FTIR, TGA, SEM, and EDX. The optimum conditions were established as pH = 6, 25°C, adsorbent dose of 1 g L⁻¹, contact time of 20 min, and agitation speed of 150 rpm. The adsorption process was spontaneous, exothermic, fitting well to Langmuir isotherm model with the maximum adsorption capacity of 41.01 mg g⁻¹ and more suitable to be described by the pseudo first-order kinetic model. It was indicated that the physical adsorption plays a leading role in the adsorption process. The recycling study was also conducted to confirm the long-term use of the synthesized adsorbent.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• PET bottles
• CuBDC
• metal-organic framework
• methylene blue
• adsorption