Insight into the effect of surface carboxyl and amino groups on the adsorption of titanium dioxide for acid red G

In this study, TiO₂ functionalized with organic groups were prepared to study the effect of carboxyl and amino groups on the adsorption behavior of TiO₂ for the removal of acid red G (ARG) as an anionic dye from aqueous solution. TiO₂ was successfully modified with carboxyl and amino groups by using the hydrolysis method with oxalic acid (OAD, with two carboxyl groups), ethylenediamine (EDA, with two amino groups) and DL-alanine (DLA, with one carboxyl group and one amino group) at low temperature (65 °C) and labeled as OAD-TiO₂, EDA-TiO₂ and DLA-TiO₂, respectively. The ARG uptake by the functionalized TiO₂ samples was largely dependent on the functional groups. The interaction between ARG and the functional organic groups on the TiO₂ samples plays an important role in the adsorption process, which leads to the excellent adsorption performance (higher capacity and faster adsorption rate) of the functionalized TiO₂ samples than that of P25 (commercial TiO₂ without modification). Furthermore, there is no obvious loss of the adsorption capacity for the functionalized TiO₂ even after 5 adsorption-desorption cycles, which indicated the good reusability of the modified TiO₂ samples for anionic dye removal from aqueous solution. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].