Oxidized cellulose reinforced silica gel: New hybrid for dye adsorption

•A novel dicarboxylic cellulose/silica hybrid was prepared by sol-gel technique.•Dicarboxylic cellulose/silica hybrid has homogenous glassy structure.•The current hybrid showed efficient adsorption capacity for cationic dyes (526 mg/g).•Adsorption process followed Pseudo second order and fitted with Langmuir model. A benign dicarboxylic cellulose/silica hybrid was synthesized through periodate-chlorite oxidation of cellulose followed by in-situ silica network formation through sol-gel process. The crosslinked 2, 3 dicarboxylic cellulose/silica hybrid showed a homogenous morphology and the internal structure shows rod-like structure for 2, 3 dicarboxylic cellulose with ∼5 nm in width. The current hybrid was investigated as a new adsorbent for methylene blue (MB) adsorption from aqueous solutions. The adsorption data were best represented by pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum adsorption is 526 mg/g according to Langmuir fitting. The obtained results suggested potential applications of dicarboxylic cellulose/silica hybrid for the efficient removal of MB from contaminated wastewater.