Chemical modification of artocarpus odoratissimus skin for enhancement of their adsorption capacities toward toxic malachite green dye

Chemical modification of surfaces introduces new characteristics which would thereafter cause the adsorbent to behave as a new material. this aspect has become recently attractive to improve the performance of natural adsorbents toward environmental pollution control. the surface of artocarpus odoratissimus skin (ts) modified by agents having high electron densities or negatively charged moieties acts more efficiently to attract malachite green (mg) dye molecules which bear positive charges. among three modifies attempted; sodium dodecyl sulfate (sds),ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (edta) and sodium hydroxide (naoh) in aqueous phase,the surface is more efficiently covered by sds although the affinity of the modified surface toward mg was most significantly improved by naoh treatment,owing to the acid-base type of reaction with surface carboxylic and phenolic acid moieties which would be converted to corresponding anions promoting sorption of mg. the maximum adsorption capacity (qmax) for ts and its sds,edta and naoh modified forms was 80.5 mg/g,100.8 mg/g,116.8 mg/g and 157.6 mg/g,respectively. ts and ts modified with sds and edta followed the redlich-peterson (r-p) isotherm model while the sips model best fitted the naoh modified ts. the extent of adsorption of mg by the natural and modified ts is influenced by ionic constituents in the medium and the ph.