Ultrasonic enhancement of the simultaneous removal of quaternary toxic organic dyes by CuO nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon: Central composite design, kinetic and isotherm study

• Simultaneous ultrasound-enhanced adsorption of brilliant green, auramine O, methylene blue and eosin yellow dyes.
• Successfully synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon (CuO-NPs-AC).
• These nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, FE-SEM, and FTIR Spectroscopy.
• Derivative spectrophotometric remove spectra overlap between dyes.

Copper oxide nanoparticles loaded on activated carbon (CuO-NPs-AC) were prepared and fully analyzed and characterized with FE-SEM, XRD and FT-IR. Subsequently, this novel material was used for simultaneous ultrasound-assisted adsorption of brilliant green (BG), auramine O (AO), methylene blue (MB) and eosin yellow (EY) dyes. Problems regard to dyes spectra overlap in quaternary solution of this dyes were omitted by derivative spectrophotometric method. The best pH in quaternary system was studied by using one at a time method to achieved maximum dyes removal percentage. Subsequently, sonication time, adsorbent dosage and initial dyes concentrations influence on dyes removal was optimized by central composite design (CCD) combined with desirability function approach (DFA). Desirability score of 0.978 show optimum conditions set at sonication time (4.2 min), adsorbent mass (0.029 g), initial dyes concentration (4.5 mg L−1). Under this optimum condition the removal percentage for MB, AO, EY and BG dyes 97.58, 94.66, 96.22 and 94.93, respectively. The adsorption rate well fitted by pseudo second-order while adsorption capacity according to the Langmuir model as best equilibrium isotherm model for BG, MB, AO and EY was 20.48, 21.26, 22.34 and 21.29 mg g−1, respectively.