Synthesis of a novel gellan-pullulan nanogel and its application in adsorption of cationic dye from aqueous medium

The current study focused on synthesizing a novel gellan-pullulan composite nanogel via chemical crosslinking with DPPH. The physical and rheological properties of the synthesised nanogel was assessed by determining its particle size, zeta potential and effect of temperature and stress on viscosity of nanogels. Furthermore, the novel nanogel was assessed for its ability to ameliorate water resources by efficiently adsorbing cationic dyes. Methylene blue (MB) was used as a model cationic dye compound in the study. The adsorption capacity of nanogels for MB was evaluated by fitting different isotherm models and understanding thermodynamics and kinetics of the process. It was revealed from the overall analysis that nanogels had the property to adsorb MB in multilayer alignment. The gellan-pullulan composite nanogel was found to have better adsorption capability as compared to native gellan nanogel. This is the first report of gellan-pullulan nanogel and its application for cationic dye adsorption.