Methylene blue removal with ZnO coated montmorillonite: thermodynamic, kinetic, isotherm and artificial intelligence studies.

In this study, montmorillonite clay was coated with zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. The study's primary aim is to investigate the adsorption properties of zinc oxide coated montmorillonite adsorbent against methylene blue (MB), and determine ZnO's effectiveness in adsorption. First, the surface properties of the ZnO-coated montmorillonite (ZnO/MMT) adsorbent were determined by FTIR Spectroscopy, XRD, and SEM/EDS. In the adsorption studies, the effects of different parameters such as contact time (5-150 min), adsorbent dosage (0.05-0.5 g), initial concentration (50-200 mg/L), temperature (298-318 K), and initial pH (4-12) were investigated. In addition, a fuzzy model was developed by using adsorption parameters so that the removal rates could be calculated more quickly. Adsorption kinetics and equilibrium results were explained by the pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir isotherm model, respectively. The highest adsorption capacity was calculated as 384.62 mg/g at 318 K. The enthalpy value was calculated as 2.16 kJ/mol. The entropy value was calculated as 0.04 kJ/mol K. The negative entropy value in the thermodynamic parameters calculated at all temperatures shows that the adsorption was spontaneous. According to the data we obtained, ZnO/MMT nanoparticles can be successfully applied for MB removal from aqueous solutions.