Abstract

Removal of Rhodamine-B from Aqueous Solutions using Low Cost Adsorbents

Author(s): Nikita Choudhary, Sanwal Ram, Ashvini Sharma, Shobha Sharma and Vimla Chowdhary

Colored wastewater damages the esthetic nature of water and the photosynthetic activity of aquatic organisms. Dyes are widely used as coloring agents in various industries, such as plastics, textile, and paper & pulp industry. In the present study, 1:1 ratio mixture of some low cost materials like activated carbon and fly ash mixtures were used for the adsorption of Rhodamine-B. Batch method was employed for this study to explore the feasibility of using activated carbon and fly ash mixture as a low-cost biosorbent for the removal of Rhodamine-B from aqueous solutions. The effect of physico-chemical variables such as dose level, solution pH, initial dye concentration, contact time, and temperature was also investigated. Both the isotherms, Langmuir and Freundlich models exhibited excellent fit to the equilibrium biosorption data. The maximum monolayer biosorption capacity of 82.6 was attained at optimum pH (6.0), adsorbent dose (5 g), initial dye concentration (50 ppm), temperature (35ºC), and contact time (150 min), which was higher than those of many other sorbent materials.