Abstract
Chromium, particularly Cr(VI), is a highly toxic contaminant that poses serious health risks, including immune system suppression and damage to the liver and kidneys. Its widespread presence in industrial wastewater, along with the recent detection of organic pollutants such as curcumin, raises growing environmental concerns. Therefore, the current investigation is designed to introduce an innovative multifunctional Mag-H(2)N-MXene@PSYH nanobiosorbent for the simultaneous removal of Cr(VI) and curcumin from wastewater. The nanobiosorbent was synthesized through the coupling of magnetic amino-functionalized MXene with psyllium hydrogel (PSYH), forming stable imine (C = N) and ethylenic (C = C) linkages as confirmed from the FTIR analysis. The developed nanobiosorbent demonstrated remarkably high adsorption efficiencies at pH 2, achieving 98.47% for Cr(VI) and 97.14% for curcumin, with corresponding Q(max) values 33.84 and 13.65 mg g⁻¹, respectively. Kinetic and isotherm analysis revealed that the adsorption reactions were followed by pseudo-first-order (PFO) and Freundlich models, suggesting heterogeneous multilayer sorption. Mechanistic insights indicated that the removal of Cr(VI) and curcumin were primarily governed by electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding, pore filling, and Cr(VI) reduction to Cr(III). Furthermore, this nanobiosorbent maintained about > 93.0% adsorption stability after ten regeneration cycles as the results confirmed only 6.05-6.33% efficiency decrease to highlighting its strong reusability and practical potential for wastewater treatment applications.