NATURAL POLYMER–BASED WASTEWATER TREATMENT USING PLANTAGO MAJOR SEED MUCILAGE: CHARACTERIZATION AND APPLICATION

Abstract

The growing release of dye bearing effluents by textile industries and other related industries is presenting a significant danger to aquatic life and human health thus the need being on creating materials of sustainable and low cost in terms of treatment. This paper examined mucilage that had been extracted on the seeds of Plantago major as a natural polymer-based adsorbent to treat wastewater. Mucilage was prepared by following a green extraction path of aqueous and thoroughly characterized by FTIR, XRD, SEM, EDX, and UV- visible spectroscopy. The structural and morphological measurements showed that the biopolymer has large amount of hydroxyl, carboxyl, and ether functional groups, and has porous, layered and heterogeneous surface that is laden with organic and mineral compounds. Experiments on batch adsorption showed that there was an effective removal of dye in aqueous solution and that the intensity of absorbance reduced very fast with time, which indicates the high adsorption affinity. It is assumed that the adsorption mechanism is largely due to the electrostatic attraction and hydrogen bonding and surface complexation of the dye molecules with the functional groups on the mucilage matrix. The ion-exchange interactions also increase adsorption with the naturally occurring mineral ions. On the whole, the findings emphasize that Plantago major seed mucilage can serve as a sustainable, biodegradable, and cost-effective mucilage adsorbent that has a high potential of application in wastewater treatment technologies based on green technology.