Hydrothermal development of magnetic-hydrochar nanocomposite from pineapple leaves and its performance as an adsorbent for the uptake of Mn2+ and reuse of the metal loaded adsorbent in latent fingerprint

Manganese is one of the heavy metals that is a major environmental concern when present in large amount. Manganese is discarded into water systems by numerous industries, including mining, batteries and electroplating etc. Pineapple leaves were applied as a biomass source to produce a magnetic hydrothermal treated hydochar nanocomposite; Fe3O4-HC. The BET surface area of Fe2O3-HC nanocomposite was 21.27 m2/g. Batch adsorption experiments revealed that the uptake of Mn2+ fit well in the pseudo second kinetics model, while the adsorption isotherm best fit the Freundlich model, with a maximum adsorption capacity of 2.99 mg/g at 25 °C and a pH of 5. The obtained thermodynamic parameters demonstrated that Mn2+ ion adsorption using the Fe2O3-HC nanocomposite was endothermic and nonspontaneous. Additionally, Fe2O3-HC nanocomposite demonstrated to be highly selective towards Mn2+ ions in the presence of other ions. The removal percentage of Mn2+ from a real water sample spiked with 50 mg/L Mn2+ was reported to be 53.2%. The spent adsorbent was then used to detect latent fingerprints, which revealed that Mn2+-Fe2O3-HC nanocomposite generated better and clear latent fingerprints than Fe2O3-HC nanocomposite.