LAUSR

ABSTRACT For the past decades, the safety issues of the aquatic environment and human health from the pollutants still form a cause of great concern for a lot of researchers due to its threat to the safety of humans on earth. Rhodamine B is a highly toxic dye categorized as an illegal additive in foodstuff. The current work studied and tested the Iodo-polyurethane foam (I-PUF) as a solid phase for Rhodamine dye (RhB) removal from foodstuff and environmental samples. The characterization of I-PUF was studied by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The adsorption behavior was studied via batch and column experiments. The isotherm was evaluated through different isotherm models (Langmuir, Freundlich, and Dubinin–Radushkevich (D-R)). The calculated Freundlich isotherm results confirmed significantly with the experimental data (R2 = 0.9986). The maximum RhB adsorption capacity was found as 22.2717 mg g−1. The performance of the sorbent-packed column was evaluated by the breakthrough capacity and critical capacity. The breakthrough and critical capacities were 1.65 and 1 mg g−1, respectively. Under the optimized parameters, the limit of detection (LOD) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) equals 0.2914 and 0.9713 mg L−1, respectively. An effective application was performed for environmental samples (well water) and foodstuff (cotton candy and Ice pops), where the recovery percentage varied between 94.5% and 97%.