ABSTRACT The aim of this study is “no waste is wasted”. The present work is on waste marble powder recovery and potential transformation into functionalized materials. During this study, the byproducts of the marble industries were recovered and modified using high‐temperature (i.e., 110°C–800°C) treatments. To determine the various physicochemical properties, the modified waste powder was characterized using techniques including XRD, FTIR, TGA, DTA, SEM, EDX, PL, and the pH PZC analysis. The instrumental analysis results indicated that the waste powder consists of valuable elements, including Ca, Mg, Si, Al, Fe, C, I, and O. These elements are present in the form of oxides and carbonates. The XRD, FTIR, and TGA results indicated that the major component of the marble waste (i.e., CaCO 3 ) transformed to CaO at high calcination temperature. The marble waste powder exists in a naturally occurring self‐organized heterostructure that can exhibit potential catalytic properties. The modified waste powder showed enhanced efficiency (96%) toward the removal of organic dye, Methylene Blue (MB). Furthermore, the adsorption kinetics were evaluated using the pseudo‐first‐order (PFO), pseudo‐second‐order (PSO), and intraparticle diffusion models. The kinetics results specified that the obtained data best fit the PSO, which indicated that the MB adsorption probably follows a chemisorption process.
Saqib et al. (Sun,) studied this question.