The present study uniquely integrates an economic analysis with the practical evaluation of cationic dye (methylene blue) adsorption using Carboxymethyl Chitosan-Montmorillonite (CMC/MMT) nanocomposites for industrial wastewater treatment. The most influential parameters affecting adsorption, namely temperature, initial dye concentration, contact time, and pH, were explored. The sorption mechanism of CMC/MMT was analyzed using Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models and the adsorption kinetics were evaluated using pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. Moreover, a comparison between the prepared ion exchanger and commercial resin, namely Amberlite IR 120, was conducted. The effective values of pH and temperature were found to be 8.5 and 30 °C, respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity was determined to be 435 mg/g compared to 290 mg/g for the commercial resin, indicating that the prepared nanocomposite has a greater capacity for cationic dye removal. The adsorption performance of CMC/MMT demonstrated that the adsorption kinetics and isotherms were compatible with a pseudo-second-order model and the Langmuir isotherm respectively. Furthermore, the results of the techno-economic study for the nanocomposite production revealed that the synthesized resin under investigation exhibits a lower cost per kilogram of dye removed compared with the commercial resin.
Khedr et al. (2026) studied this question.