Efficacious removal of aflatoxin M1 from milk and environmental samples using green spinel manganese ferrite-rice hull embedded by L-cysteine/cellulose-based nanocomposite biosorbent

Aflatoxin M 1 (AFM 1 ) contamination is a significant factor contributing to economic losses in the dairy industry, and it can also pose human health risks. AFM 1 can be transported easily to aquatic environments from agricultural fields by rain or re-enter the food cycle through sewage. Here, a facile wet co-participation/impregnation method was applied to fabricate rice hull-spinel manganese ferrite embedded in a porous L -cysteine-trichloro- s -triazine-cellulose scaffold (CTCR-MCF) to develop a bio-adsorbent for AFM 1 . The rice hull waste was deaggregated with spinel ferrite beads and bound to the S/N/O-H conjugates-cellulose template to synthesize an amphiphilic and pH-responsive nano-biosorbent. The modified cellulosic polymer was comprehensively characterized using structural and morphological techniques. The adsorption capacity of engineered CTCR-MCF was 0.18520 mg g −1 , and it effectively removed 99.3% (and ∼ 75.2%) of AFM 1 from 50.0 μg mL −1 AFM 1 solution (and spiked cow milk) within 45.0 min under neutral pH. The Freundlich adsorption isothermal model (R 2  = 0.982) and pseudo-2st-order kinetic model (R 2  = 0.984) demonstrated that the removal occurs as a multi-layer on a non-uniform surface without chemical/physical interactions between molecules in a spontaneous/endothermic entropy-increasing process. Additionally, environmental compatibility, chemical/thermal stability, and regeneration were assessed in detail. The results showed that the durable bio-adsorbent had no significant effects on milk nutritional qualities and was successful in removing unsafe heavy metals from milk by using a less energy-intensive isolation method. These findings offer an efficient platform for “ treating toxins with biosorbent ” to mitigate their hazardous effects in environmental and food samples.