The conversion of worthless municipal solid wastes to valuables is a major step towards environmental conservation and sustainability. This work successfully proposed a technique to utilize the two most commonly available municipal solid wastes viz polythene (PE) and sugarcane bagasse (SB) for water decolorization application. An SBPE composite material was developed and co-pyrolyzed under an inert atmosphere to develop the activated SBPEAC composite. Both SBPE and SBPEAC composites were characterized to analyze their morphological characteristics, specific surface area, chemical functional groups, and elemental composition. The adsorption efficacies of the composites were comparatively tested in the removal of malachite green (MG) from water. The SBPEAC composite had a specific surface area of 284.5 m/g and a pore size of ~1.33 nm. Batch-scale experiments revealed that the SBPEAC composite performed better toward MG adsorption compared to the SBPE composite. The maximum MG uptakes at 318 K on SBPEAC and SBPE were 926.6 and 375.6 mg/g, respectively. The adsorption of MG on both composites was endothermic. The isotherm and kinetic modeling data for MG adsorption on SBPEAC was fitted to pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm models, while Elovich kinetic and D-R isotherm models were better fitted for MG adsorption on SBPE. Mechanistically, the MG adsorption on both SBPE and SBPEAC composites involved electrostatic interaction, H-bonding, and π-π/n-π interactions.
