Adsorption of Methylene Blue Dye by Cetyltrimethylammonium Bromide Intercalated Polyaniline-Functionalized Montmorillonite Clay Nanocomposite: Kinetics, Isotherms, and Mechanism Study.

In this study, new adsorbents were prepared by modifying a montmorillonite clay (Mt) with cethyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) to form CTAB-Mt, followed by a second modification process with polyaniline (PAni) to form PAni@CTAB-Mt by in situ polymerization of aniline. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) technique were used to characterize the samples. These adsorbents were used in a batch process to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution.