Chemical activation of phosphogypsum exhibits enhanced adsorption of malachite green from aqueous solution due to porosity refinement

Abstract

Owing to its uncomplicated synthetic methodology and exorbitant market demand, malachite green is widely used in numerous industries, particularly as a fungicide in aquaculture. Considering its intrinsic toxicity and potential long-term health impacts, deployable and cost-effective strategies must be developed for eliminating water-soluble malachite green. In this study, chemically activated phosphogypsum, a byproduct of fertilizer production, was used to remove malachite green from an aqueous system. Due to its low cost and abundance, the use of phosphogypsum as a sorbent material may significantly reduce the cost of adsorption-based processes. Moreover, its structural durability allows efficient recycling without significant deformation during reactivation. However, untreated phosphogypsum exhibits minimal efficiency in adsorbing synthetic dyes due to its unfavorable surface chemistry. Our investigation revealed that Zn activation induced a noticeable increase in pore volume from 0.03 to 0.06 cm³·g^–1. A 60 mg·L^–1 sorbent dose, pH 7, 150 r·min^–1, and operational temperature of 30 °C produced 99% quantitative sorption efficiency. Response surface methodology and artificial neural network were used to optimize process parameters by validating experimental values. No detectable toxicity was observed in Escherichia coli when exposed to the treated water.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

malachite green / operating conditions optimization / phosphogypsum / sorption / water treatment

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Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Ministry of Mines of the Government of India (Grant No. Met4-14/15/2022). Moonis Ali Khan acknowledges financial support through the Researchers Supporting Project (Grant No. RSP2024R345), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Ramesh Kumar acknowledges financial support through the Creative and Challenging Research Program (Grant No. 2021R1I1A1A01060846) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) of the Republic of Korea.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-024-2475-4 and is accessible for authorized users.

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