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This study explores the potential of repurposing discarded plastic bottles and cellulosic paper waste to develop cost-effective and high-performance composites for dye removal applications. A novel composite, polyethyleneimine (PEI)-functionalized waste tissue integrated into waste polyethylene terephthalate (wPET) (PEIWT/wPET), was designed as an environmentally friendly adsorbent for wastewater treatment. Successful surface functionalization with PEI was confirmed through FTIR, EDX, and XPS analyses. The PEI-modified composite exhibited enhanced mechanical and thermal stability while demonstrating significantly improved dye adsorption/filtration performance. The composite was evaluated for the removal of both cationic (crystal violet, CV) and anionic (orange II, O II) dyes under optimized conditions; (10,000 mg/L and 1666 mg/L) adsorbent dosage, (11 and 1) pH, 10 mg/L initial dye concentration, and (180 min and 120 min) contact time for CV and O II respectively. Experimental results showed that PEIWT/wPET achieved maximum adsorption capacities of 3.94 mg/g for CV and 11.73 mg/g for O II, approximately five times higher than the unmodified composite (0.74 and 2.4 mg/g). Adsorption isotherm and kinetic studies indicated that the data aligned well with the Langmuir as well as Freundlich and pseudo-second order models. The membrane also exhibited filtration capability for both dyes, achieving a filtration efficiency of 78.69 % for anionic and 41.31 % for cationic dye separation. Overall, the PEIWT/wPET composite offers a promising, sustainable, and energy-efficient solution for the removal of organic pollutants.

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