Adsorption of dye is strongly dependent upon pH of the medium. The effect of pH variation on the adsorption was studied in the pH range of 2.0–9.0. The adsorption of CR by extracted cellulose was observed to decrease with an increase in pH, while in case of CCDA adsorption capacity increases sharply with an increase in pH upto 4.0 and then reached almost a plateau upto pH 7.0 and decreases thereafter (Fig. 7c). The increase in adsorption capacity of CCDA from 11.7 to 20.0 mg/g with the increase in pH from 2.0 to 4.0 can be attributed to the Schiff base formation between the dialdehyde group and the primary amine groups present on CR which is favoured by the pH range 4.0–4.5. All the amine groups present on CR are expected to exist in the protonated form at low pH [36]. Hence, Schiff-base formation is hindered under the strong acidic conditions, below pH 4.0, due to the non-availability of primary amine groups for the Schiff base formation. Therefore, at pH 2 the adsorption of CR by CCDA was very less, even lower than cellulose. Also, at pH higher than 4.0, Schiff-base formation is non-feasible, hence result is lower dye uptake with a low q value. So, pH 4.0 was selected as the optimum pH for the further studies.