**2.2 Methods**

consumes more water for its wet processes. Therefore, globally it is estimated that all wastewater discharge is highly populated. According to the world bank estimation, textile dyeing and finishing treatment given to a fabric generates at least 17–

Dyes often discharged in water effluents contain residues that are highly visible and undesirable even at low concentrations [4]. In addition, they are toxic due to their harmful effects on the human beings. Therefore, it is of vital importance that they are removed from water [5]. Wastewater containing dyes needs to be treated before being discharged into water bodies [6]. Various techniques including chemical oxidation, coagulation-flocculation, membrane processes and biological treatment have shown effectiveness in the removal of methylene blue from waste water [7]. The limitation most of these techniques possess is the incomplete dye removal, poor detection, requirement of expensive equipment and monitoring systems [6]. The performance of adsorption techniques have been applied due to their effectiveness since they remove the entire dye molecule, leaving no fragments in the effluent [8]. Extensive research in recent years has focused on utilizing waste materials from agricultural products (such as pine cones and others) since they are eco-friendly, cost-effective and renewable [9]. Pine cones are naturally occurring agricultural wastes widely found in a plantation in Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng, South Africa. They are of commercial importance and value which is extensively used in different industries [10]. One pine cone consists of 46.5% hemicellulose, 37.4% lignin, 18.8% cellulose and 15.4% extractives [11]. Pine cone powder has been studied extensively in the removal of heavy metal pollutants such as lead, caesium, copper nickel and arsenic from water systems. Activated carbon has been the most employed adsorbent for the removal of dyes due to its outstanding adsorption properties. However, it has limitations by being expensive and it cannot be used in large applications of wastewater treatment. The use of biomass and other microbial cultures in the removal of methylene blue has been extensively studied in recent years. Among others, carbonized organic materials, fly ashes, peat moss, recycled alum sludge,

fishery residues and microorganisms such as fungus and algae [12].

lating the surface properties of plant materials such as type and amount of functional groups, surface area and porosity by extraction of plant chemical components in order to improve its adsorptive ability. Grafting of synthetic monomers onto pure biological materials has been successfully performed, e.g., grafting of

acrylonitrile onto starch [13] and methyl acrylonitrile onto cotton [14].

**2. Materials and methods**

**2.1 Materials**

**158**

The present study reports the development and characterization of grafted pine magnetite composite using grafted acrylamide (GACA) for the removal of methylene blue in wastewater. Grafting is a process of chemically or physically manipu-

Pine cones are naturally occurring agricultural wastes found in a plantation in

Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng, South Africa. All the chemicals and reagents used throughout this study were of analytical grade reagents and used without any further purification. Acrylicamide, ceric ammonium nitrate (CAN), nitric acid (HNO3), sodium hydroxide (NaOH), ammonium hydroxide (NH4OH), ferric sulfate (FeSO4) and methylene blue was supplied by Merck, South Africa. Deionized was used for the preparation of all solutions. The stock solution for methylene blue (1000 mg/L) was prepared by dissolving the required amount of dyes in a 1000 ml of deionized water and the stock solution was further diluted for batch experiments.

20% of world's industrial wastewater [2, 3].

*Waste in Textile and Leather Sectors*
