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Received 24 August 2004; received in revised form 25 February 2005; accepted 7 March 2005
Available online 24 May 2005
Abstract
Present investigation deals with the utilisation of bagasse y ash (BFA) (generated as a waste material from bagasse
red boilers) and the use of activated carbonscommercial grade (ACC) and laboratory grade (ACL), as adsorbents
for the removal of congo red (CR) from aqueous solutions. Batch studies were conducted to evaluate the adsorption
capacity of BFA, ACC and ACL and the eects of initial pH (pH0), contact time and initial dye concentration on
adsorption. The pH0 of the dye solution strongly aected the chemistry of both the dye molecules and BFA in an aque-
ous solution. The eective pH0 was 7.0 for adsorption on BFA. Kinetic studies showed that the adsorption of CR on all
the adsorbents was a gradual process. Equilibrium reached in about 4 h contact time. Optimum BFA, ACC and ACL
dosages were found to be 1, 20 and 2 g l1, respectively. CR uptake by the adsorbents followed pseudo-second-order
kinetics. Equilibrium isotherms for the adsorption of CR on BFA, ACC and ACL were analysed by the Freundlich,
Langmuir, RedlichPeterson, and Temkin isotherm equations. Error analysis showed that the RP isotherm best-ts
the CR adsorption isotherm data on all adsorbents. The Freundlich isotherm also shows comparable t. Thermody-
namics showed that the adsorption of CR on BFA was most favourable in comparison to activated carbons.
2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Dye removal; Bagasse y ash; BFA; Congo red; CR; Adsorption kinetics; Isotherms; Error analyses
stability (Mckay et al., 1981; Seshadri et al., 1994). CR open market in New Delhi. ACL manufactured by
containing euents are generated from textiles, printing GSE Chemical Testing Laboratory and Allied Industry,
and dyeing, paper, rubber, plastics industries, etc. Due New Delhi was procured locally. The carbons were used
to its structural stability, CR is dicult to biodegrade. as procured. ACL was used as the standard adsorbent
Physico-chemical or chemical treatment of such waste- for comparison of adsorptive characteristics of ACC
waters is, however, possible (Mckay et al., 1981; Banat and BFA. The origin of the activated carbons is not
et al., 1996). Adsorption is considered an attractive op- known, but being from dierent manufacturers, they
tion in treating such wastewaters (Chern and Wu, possess dierent characteristics. The physico-chemical
2001; Namasivayam and Kavitha, 2002). Granular acti- characteristics of these adsorbents were determined
vated carbon is the most popular adsorbent that has using standard procedures. Proximate analysis of the
been used with great success (McKay, 1982). However, adsorbents was carried out using the standard procedure
adsorbent-grade activated carbon is cost-prohibitive (IS:1350 (part I), 1984). Bulk density was determined by
and both regeneration and disposal of the used carbon using a MAC bulk density meter. X-ray diraction ana-
are often very dicult. Consequently, many investiga- lysis was carried out with a Phillips (Holland) diraction
tors have studied the feasibility of using low cost sub- unit (Model PW 1140/90), using copper target with
stances. Critical reviews of low cost adsorbents for nickel as a lter medium, and K radiation maintained
wastewater treatment have been presented by Mall at 1.542 A . Goniometer and chart speeds were main-
et al. (1996) and Bailey et al. (1999). tained at 1 min1 and 1 cm min1, respectively. Scan-
In the present investigation bagasse y ash (BFA), a ning electron micrographs (SEM) were obtained by
waste collected from the particulate collection equip- using LEO 435 VP Scanning electron microscope. The
ment attached upstream to the stacks of bagasse red specic surface area and the pore diameter of the sample
boilers, and activated carbons of commercial grade were measured by N2 adsorption isotherm using an
(ACC) and laboratory grade (ACL) have been used as ASAP 2010 Micromeritics instrument and by the
adsorbents for the removal of CR. The aim of the pres- BrunauerEmmettTeller (BET) method, using the soft-
ent work is to explore the possibility of utilizing BFA for ware of Micromeritics. Nitrogen was used as cold bath
the adsorptive removal of CR from wastewater. The ef- (77.15 K). The BarrettJoynerHanlenda (BJH) method
fect of such factors as pH0, adsorbent dose, contact time (Barret et al., 1951) was used to calculate the mesopore
and initial concentration was investigated. The kinetics distribution.
of CR adsorption on the adsorbents was analysed by t-
ting various kinetic models. Experimental equilibrium 2.2. Adsorbate
data were tted to the Freundlich, Langmuir, Redlich
Peterson (RP), and Temkin isotherm equations to The adsorbate CR dye [C.I. = 22 120, chemical for-
determine the best-t isotherm equation. Error analysis mula = C32H22N6Na2O6S2, FW = 696.7, kmax = 500 nm]
was carried out to test the adequacy and the accuracy was supplied by the Sigma Chemical Company, USA.
of the model equations. The structure of CR is illustrated in Fig. 1 (Fu and Vir-
araghavan, 2002). An accurately weighed quantity of the
dye was dissolved in double-distilled water to prepare
2. Material and methods stock solution (500 mg l1).
BFA was obtained from a local sugar mill, washed Concentrations of dyes were determined by nding
with hot water (70 C) and dried. ACC manufactured out the absorbance at the characteristic wavelength
by Rajasthan Breweries Ltd. was procured from the using a double beam UV/vis spectrophotometer (model
NH2 NH2
N N N N
SO3Na SO3Na
UV 210 A; Shimadzu, Japan). The kmax for CR was the amount of ash was very high in BFA in comparison
found to be 500 nm. Calibration curves were plotted bet- to that in ACC and ACL (Table 1). ACL has lower den-
ween absorbance and concentration of the dye solution. sity than ACC and also has highest xed carbon in com-
parison to that in BFA and ACC. ACL also has larger
2.4. Batch experimental programme BET surface area and lower ash content than for
ACC. SEM of BFA (Fig. 2) shows brous structure with
To study the eect of important parameters like the large pore size with strands in each bre. ACL also
pH0, adsorbent dosage (m), contact time (t), initial dye shows similar structure like BFA, which may be due to
concentration (C0), etc., on the adsorptive removal of inherent bre structure in the original raw material.
CR, batch experiments were conducted at 30 1 C. The size of the bre and inter bre space is similar to
For each experimental run, 50 ml of CR solution of BFA. ACC has structure similar to ACL and partially
known concentration, pH and a known amount of the similar to BFA. Number of pores in BFA is lesser than
adsorbent were taken in a 100 ml stoppered conical that in ACL. However, the brous nature of the struc-
ask. This mixture was agitated in a temperature con- ture is not so predominant in the micrograph, which
trolled shaking water bath at a constant speed of may be due to its large size. d-Spacing values provided
145 rpm at 30 1 C. Samples were withdrawn at by the X-ray spectra of BFA reected the presence of
appropriate time intervals and centrifuged using Re- alumina (Al2O3), CaSiO3, Ca8Si5O18, and amorphous
search Centriguge (Remi scientic works, Mumbai), at silica, where as silicate carbon and tridymite were the
10 000 rpm for 30 min and the absorbance of the super- major components identied in ACC and ACL. Dirac-
natant was measured. Experiments were carried out at tion peaks corresponding to crystalline carbon were not
pH0 7. Eect of pH0 on dye removal was studied over observed in the adsorbents. Other peaks indicate the
a pH0 range of 313. pH0 was adjusted by the addition presence of Fe2O3, MgO and CaO. Amorphous form
of dilute aqueous solutions of HCI or NaOH (0.10 M). of silica was identied in all the adsorbents. The sum-
For the optimum amount of adsorbent per unit mass mary of the porous structure of BFA is also shown in
of adsorbate, a 50 ml dye solution was contacted with Table 1. BFA has a wide pore size distribution (Fig. 3)
dierent amounts of adsorbents till equilibrium was at- giving wide distribution of surface area. The BET sur-
tained. Kinetics of adsorption was determined by ana- face area is 168.8 m2 g1 whereas BJH adsorption/
lyzing adsorptive uptake of the dye from aqueous desorption surface area of pores is 54.2/49.9 m2 g1.
solution at dierent time intervals. For adsorption iso- The single point total pore volume of micropores
therms, dye solutions of dierent concentrations were (<1042.3 A ) is 0.101 cm3 g1 whereas cumulative pore
agitated with known amount of adsorbents till the equi- volume of pores (17 < d < 3000 A ) is 0.053 cm3 g1.
librium was achieved. The residual dye concentration The average pore diameter by BET is 23.97 A whereas
(C) was then determined. Batch tests were carried out the BJH adsorption/desorption average pore diameter
to compare the adsorptive capacity and intensity of dif- is 39.36 A /33.90 A.
ferent adsorbents. Blank runs, with only the adsorbents
in 50 ml of double-distilled water, were conducted simul- 3.2. Eect of pH
taneously at similar conditions to account for any colour
leached by the adsorbents and adsorbed by glass The adsorptive treatment of dye containing wastewa-
containers. ter is pH dependent. However, pH is also known to af-
fect the structural stability of CR and, therefore, its
colour intensity. Hence the eect of pH0 was studied
3. Results and discussion with blank CR solutions of concentration 10 mg l1 hav-
ing the natural pH0 = 6.8. The solution was kept for 1 h
3.1. Characterisation of adsorbents after the pH adjustment and, thereafter, the absorbance
of the solution was found out. It is found that the colour
Physico-chemical characteristics of BFA, ACC and is stable at pH0 around 7. Fig. 4 shows the colour re-
ACL are given in Table 1. It was observed that BFA moval without BFA over a pH0 range of 313. pH re-
has the lowest bulk density among the adsorbents, and duces the colour below pH0 6 and above pH0 10,
Table 1
Characteristic of adsorbents
Adsorbent Bulk density (kg m3) BET surface area (m2 g1) Moisture (%) Volatile matter (%) Ash (%) Fixed carbon (%)
BFA 133.33 168.83 07.64 17.37 26.43 48.56
ACC 740.74 390.00 09.07 17.32 05.49 68.12
ACL 588.23 492.00 08.61 16.62 02.67 72.10
I.D. Mall et al. / Chemosphere 61 (2005) 492501 495
0.044
Pore volume (cm3 g-1)
Pore area
40
charge of the adsorbent.
0.033 The oxides of alumina, calcium and silica present in
30 the BFA develop charge in contact with water. Except
0.022
20
silica, all other oxides possess positive charge in the
pH0 range of interest because zero point charge of
0.011
10 SiO2, Al2O3 and CaO are 2.2, 8.3 and 11.0, respectively.
The negatively charged silica sites of adsorbent are neu-
0.000 0
10 100 1000 10000 tralized by H+ ions thereby reducing hindrance to diu-
Pore diameter (A) sion of dye ions. For pH0 below 7, a signicantly high
electrostatic attraction exists between the positively
Fig. 3. Pore size distribution of BFA.
charged surface of the adsorbent and the anionic dye.
As the pH of the system increased, the number of nega-
tively charged sites increased and the number of posi-
tively charged sites decreased. A negatively charged
100
With BFA surface site on the adsorbent did not favour the adsorp-
80 Without BFA tion of dye anions due to electrostatic repulsion. Also,
there was competition between OH (at high pH0) and
%Removal
60
coloured ions of CR for positively charged adsorption
40
sites. However, in the alkaline pH0 range 710, signi-
cant adsorption still occurred. This suggests that chemi-
20 sorption might have been operative in this pH0 range. In
the pH0 range 1012, Al2O3 and CaO become negatively
0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 charged. Thus, electrostatic repulsion between nega-
pH0 tively charged surface of adsorbent and anionic dye
causes signicant reduction in the removal of dye from
Fig. 4. Eect of pH0 on the removal of CR with and without the solution.
BFA (temperature = 30 C, t = 4 h, C0 = 10 mg l1, BFA
dosage = 1 g l1).
3.3. Eect of adsorbent dosage (m)
however, colour change is negligible over a pH0 range of The eect of m on the removal of CR showed that the
610. Maximum colour removal is at pH0 3 and 13. Col- colour removal increases up to a certain limit and then it
496 I.D. Mall et al. / Chemosphere 61 (2005) 492501
remains almost constant. Optimum BFA, ACC and cules with the increase in contact time makes it almost
ACL dosages were found to be 1, 20 and 2 g of adsor- impossible to diuse deeper into the adsorbent structure
bents per litre of dye solution, respectively. Increase in at highest energy sites. This aggregation negates the
the adsorption with adsorbent dosage can be attributed inuence of contact time as the mesopores get lled up
to increased adsorbent surface area of mesopores and and start oering resistance to diusion of aggregated
the availability of more adsorption sites. But unit dye molecules in the adsorbents. This is the reason
adsorption decreased with an increase in the adsorbent why an insignicant enhancement in adsorption is ef-
dosage. fected in 7 days as compared to that in 4 h. Since the dif-
ference in the adsorption values at 4 h and at 7 days is
3.4. Eect of initial dye concentration (C0) very small, further experiments were conducted for 4 h
contact time only. The adsorption curves (not shown
The eect of C0 on the removal of CR by the adsor- here) were single, smooth and continuous leading to sat-
bents at optimum dosage of each adsorbent is shown in uration and indicated the possible mono-layer coverage
Fig. 5. It may be seen that BFA performs the best. on the surface of adsorbents by the dye molecules
Experiments were also done for a constant dosage of (Wong and Yu, 1999; Malik, 2003).
the adsorbents (m = 1 g l1) which showed that the CR
removal by BFA at high C0 (>50 mg l1) is 35% higher 3.6. Adsorption kinetic study
than that by ACL. From the gure, it is evident that
the CR removal decreased with the increase in C0, In order to investigate the adsorption processes of
although the actual amount of dye adsorbed per unit CR on the adsorbents, pseudo-rst-order, pseudo-sec-
mass of adsorbent increased with the increase in C0. ond-order, Bangham and intra-particle diusion kinetic
The CR removal increased with the increase in the models kinetic were used.
adsorbate concentration as the resistance to the uptake
of CR from the solution decreases with the increase in 3.6.1. Pseudo-rst-order model
CR concentration. The rate of adsorption also increases The pseudo-rst-order equation is
with the increase in C0 due to increase in the driving dqt
force. k f qe qt 1
dt
3.5. Eect of contact time where qt is the amount of adsorbate adsorbed at time t
(mg g1), qe is the adsorption capacity in equilibrium
Eect of contact time for the removal of CR by the (mg g1), kf is the pseudo-rst-order rate constant
adsorbents at m = 1 g l1 showed rapid adsorption of (min1), and t is the contact time (min). The integration
dye in the rst 15 min and, thereafter, the adsorption of Eq. (1) with the initial condition, qt = 0 at t = 0 leads
rate decreased gradually and the adsorption reached to:
equilibrium in about 4 h. 99.4% of CR removal was ob- kf
tained with BFA in 4 h. ACL and ACC eected 79.8% logqe qt log qe t 2
2.303
and 30.1% CR removal only. Increase in contact time
Values of adsorption rate constant (kf) for CR adsorp-
up to 7 days showed that the CR removal by BFA
tion on BFA, ACC and ACL were determined from
and ACL increases only by about 0.5% over those ob-
the plot of log(qe qt) against t (not shown). These val-
tained for 4 h contact time. Aggregation of dye mole-
ues (kf = 0.022 min1 for ACL, 0.016 min1 for BFA
and 0.013 min1 for ACC) (Table 2) indicate that the
100 rate of removal was fastest by ACL followed by BFA
and ACC.
95
The reported kf values for the adsorption of CR on
%Removal
Table 2
Kinetic parameters for the removal of congo red by various adsorbents
Adsorbent kf (min1) qe (mg g1) R2 (linear) R2
Pseudo-rst-order constants
BFA 0.016 2.073 0.9763 0.9881
ACC 0.013 0.203 0.9702 0.9923
ACL 0.022 1.471 0.9702 0.9850
h (mg g1 min1) ks (g mg1 min1) qe (mg g1) R2
Pseudo-second-order constants
BFA 5.663 0.061 9.638 0.9946
ACC 0.094 0.413 0.477 0.9935
ACL 1.594 0.069 4.789 0.9971
kid,1 (mg g1 min1) I (mg g1) R2 kid,2 (mg g1 min1) I (mg g1) R2
Intra-particle diusion constants
BFA 0.291 6.976 0.9797 0.041 9.177 0.9248
ACC 0.024 0.233 0.9662 0.008 0.365 0.7739
ACL 0.243 2.742 0.9473 0.024 4.435 0.9058
where ks is the pseudo-second-order rate constant to Eq. (6), did not yield satisfactory linear curves for the
(g mg1 min1). Integrating Eq. (3) and noting that CR removal by the adsorbents. This shows that the diu-
qt = 0 at t = 0, the following equation is obtained: sion of adsorbate into the pores of the sorbent was not
the only rate-controlling step (Tutem et al., 1998). It
tk s q2e
qt 4 may be that both the lm and pore diusion were impor-
1 tk s qe
tant to dierent extents in the removal process.
The initial sorption rate, h (mg g1 min1), at t ! 0 is
dened as 3.6.4. Intra-particle diusion study
The possibility of intra-particle diusion resistance
h k s q2e 5
aecting adsorption was explored by using the intra-par-
h, qe and ks can be determined from the non-linear tting ticle diusion model as
of the data using a statistical software STATISTICA
qt k id t1=2 I 7
version 5.0 for Windows. The best-t values of h, qe
and ks along with correlation coecients for the pseu- where kid is the intra-particle diusion rate constant. In
do-rst-order and pseudo-second-order models are Fig. 6, a plot of mass of CR adsorbed per unit mass of
shown in Table 2. Since correlation coecients are clo- adsorbent, qt versus t1/2 is presented for all the three
ser to unity for the pseudo-second-order kinetics than adsorbents. Values of I (Table 2) give an idea about
that for the pseudo-rst-order kinetics, the sorption the thickness of the boundary layer, i.e., the larger inter-
kinetics can be represented better by the pseudo-sec- cept the greater is the boundary layer eect (Kannan and
ond-order kinetics for all the three adsorbents. The ks
and h values as calculated are listed in Table 2. It can 10
be seen that the BFA has highest h and qe values. Bhat-
tacharyya and Sharma (2004) have reported a ks value of 8 BFA
ACC
0.0104 g mmol1 min1 for the adsorption of CR on A.
qt (mg g )
-1
ACL
6
indica (neem) leaf powder. Due to dierence in the nat-
ure of the adsorbents used in the present work, a direct 4
comparison of the values of ks is not possible.
2
Table 3
Isotherm parameters and error analyses values for the removal of congo red by various adsorbents
Adsorbent KF ((mg g1) (mg l1)1/n) 1/n R2 HYBRID MPSD
Freundlich constants
BFA 8.162 0.288 0.9983 0.123 3.483
ACC 0.402 0.234 0.9936 0.049 2.048
ACL 0.939 0.341 0.9914 0.168 4.004
KL (l mg1) qm (mg g1) R2 HYBRID MPSD
Langmuir constants
BFA 3.334 11.885 0.924 2.216 14.888
ACC 1.867 0.635 0.968 0.199 4.469
ACL 1.378 1.875 0.956 0.652 8.074
ACC
ACL
5 3.8. Error analysis
4
Due to the inherent bias resulting from linearisation,
3
dierent error functions of non-linear regression basin
were employed in this study to nd out the best-t iso-
2
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2
therm model to the experimental equilibrium data.
ln Ce Based on the error functions and their limitations, the
hybrid fractional error function (HYBRID) was chosen
Fig. 7. RedlichPeterson isotherm plots for the removal of along-with Marquardts percent standard deviation
CR by various adsorbents (pH0 = 7, temperature = 30 C, (MPSD).
t = 4 h). HYBRID is given as
" #
100 X n
qe;exp qe;calc
HYBRID 16
16 n p i1 qe;exp
i
14
2 1, 3
4
This error function was developed (Porter et al., 1999) to
12
improve the t of the error analysis at low concentration
qe (mg g-1)
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