Synthesis of rice husk-derived cellulose for efficacious removal of malachite green from aqueous solution

Malachite green (MG), a common dye composed of N-methylated diamino-triphenylmethane, is often released uncontrollably into wastewater by leather and textile manufacturing industries. The abundance of MG in the environment poses a severe threat to mankind and associated organisms. In this study, cellulose was synthesized from lignocellulosic biomass rice husk after pre-treatment with different concentration of sodium hydroxide with or without ultrasonication followed by its utilisation to develop a non-toxic, pocket-friendly adsorbent for treatment of wastewater. Understanding the role of process parameters along with calculation of the isotherm, kinetics and thermodynamic parameters were conducted in the experiment in order to elucidate the novel pre-treatment method. In this study, the highest MG removal of 97.9% was acquired using rice-husk-derived cellulose. The obtained data have suggested that the spontaneous endothermic process and Langmuir isotherm models.