The high adsorption performance of banana (Musa ABB Cv. Kluai ‘Namwa’) beaded materials modified with zinc and magnesium oxides for cadmium removal

Abstract Wastewater contaminated with cadmium is a concern because of its toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation to the environment, ecosystem, and human health, so it is required to remove cadmium(II) ions before releasing them to receiving water. Banana powder beads (BPB), banana powder doped ZnO beads (BPZB), banana powder doped MgO beads (BPMB), and banana powder doped ZnO + MgO beads (BPZMB) were synthesized as the novel cadmium adsorbents, and their characterizations, cadmium adsorption performances, cadmium adsorption patterns and mechanisms, thermodynamic study, and reusability were investigated. BPMB had the highest specific surface area of 16.60 m2/g and the smallest pore size of 1.69 nm than other materials. BPB was an amorphous structure, whereas BPZB, BPMB, and BPZMB were crystalline structures presenting their specific metal oxide peaks of ZnO or MgO. They were coarse surfaces and had a spherical shape consisting of C, O, Ca, Cl, and Na. Their main functional groups were O–H, C–H, C=O, C–O, and N–H. The points of zero charge of BPB, BPZB, BPMB, and BPZMB were 5.37, 6.75, 9.87, and 9.43. The cadmium removal efficiencies of BPB, BPZB, BPMB, and BPZMB were 89.18%, 96.62%, 99.59%, and 97.85%, and their q m values were 90.09, 232.56, 454.55, and 303.03 mg/g, respectively. Thus, the metal oxide helped to improve material efficiency, especially MgO. The Freundlich and pseudo-second-order kinetic models were good fit models for describing their adsorption patterns and mechanisms. The increasing temperature affected to decrease their cadmium adsorptions. They could be reused in more than 3 cycles of more than 73% of cadmium adsorption. The electrostatic interaction played an important role in describing their cadmium adsorptions. Therefore, BPBM was a good cadmium adsorbent for application in industrial wastewater treatment since it had a higher performance of cadmium adsorption than other materials.