Microwave assisted phyto-mediated synthesis of tartaric acid infused <i>Citrus paradisi</i> peels for phytofiltration of Rhodamine-B dye from wastewater

This study investigates the potential of <i>Citrus paradisi</i> peel (CP) as biosorbent for the elimination of Rhodamine B (RhD B) from wastewater. The study used FTIR, SEM and EDX to determine the structure of CP. It was shown that 1.4 and 2.0 g were the optimal biosorbent doses for plain and treated peels, respectively. A number of factors were optimized in order to examine the sorbent efficiency for Rhodamine-B dye. Simple and acid-modified biosorbents were employed in batch mode processing to remove hazardous basic dyes such as rhodamine-B. Adsorption equilibrium was achieved within 60 min, and treated grapefruit peels (TTCP) were found to be more effective than untreated grapefruit peels (UCP). Kinetic studies outcomes showed that the pseudo-second-order kinetics form fit more with an R2 of ≥ 0.916 and ≥ 0.932 for UCP and TTCP respectively. The adsorption isotherm of Langmuir was used to describe equilibrium for TTCP, with highest sorption ability of 321.507 µg/g. The study also discovered that 1 M HCl and NaOH may be used to regenerate CP, with recovery rates of RhD B reaching up to 98% and 85%, respectively indicating CP is a potential biosorbent for removing RhD B from aqueous solutions.