Indonesia is one of the largest banana producing countries in the world remaining abundance solid waste of banana fruit bunch. The banana fruit bunch contains high natural fibers which were obtained by an impregnation process using potassium hydroxide (KOH) and followed by a carbonization process under steam at 250°C for 5 h. The nanomaterial of TiO2/fibre was prepared by a hydrothermal process at 200°C for 4 h. Surface morphology proved that the TiO2 was loaded into the fibre by an increasing roughness of the surface and irregular size of porosity. The development of amorphous to crystalline phase of TiO2/fibre was clearly observed. The effectiveness of TiO2/fibre for removal of rhodamine B was investigated from different parameters of adsorptions in aqueous solution. The equilibrium adsorptions show that the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm exhibited the best correlation coefficient (R2 > 0.94) relating to the chemisorption and physisorption interaction in the adsorption process. Kinetic models were well described by the pseudo-first and second-order with the best correlation coefficient (R2 > 0.99). These results indicate that nanomaterial TiO2/fibre can be used as an effective adsorbent for removal of rhodamine B in aqueous solution.
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