Removal of Basic Blue 41 dyes using Persea americana-activated carbon prepared by phosphoric acid action

Int J Ind Chem (2017) 8:187–195 DOI 10.1007/s40090-016-0090-z RESEARCH Removal of Basic Blue 41 dyes using Persea americana-activated carbon prepared by phosphoric acid action Abdelmajid Regti1 • My Rachid Laamari1 • Salah-Eddine Stiriba2,3 • Mohammadine El Haddad1 Received: 16 February 2016 / Accepted: 29 June 2016 / Published online: 18 July 2016  The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Adsorption study of Basic Blue 41 dye onto activated carbon from Persea americana nuts with phosphoric acid activation was achieved. The effect of operating parameters, the effect of pH (2–12), adsorbent amount (5–30 mg/50 mL), dye concentration (25–125 mg/L), contact time (0–200 min) and temperature (298–323 K), on the adsorption capacity was examined. The experimental isotherm data were analyzed using Langmuir and Freundlich models, which showed that the best fit was achieved by the Langmuir model with the maximum monolayer adsorption capacity at 625 mg/g. The adsorption kinetic process followed pseudo-second-order kinetics. Thermodynamic evaluation showed that the process was endothermic (DH0 = 144.60 kJ/mol) and spontaneous (DG0 varied from to -11.64 to -19.50 kJ/mol), while the positive value of entropy (DS0 = 524.3 J/mol K) revealed increased randomness at the adsorbent–adsorbate interface. It was found to be a very efficient adsorbent and a promising alternative for dye removal from aqueous solutions. & Mohammadine El Haddad 1 Equipe de Chimie Analytique and Environnement, Faculté Poly-disciplinaire, Université Cadi Ayyad, BP 4162, 46000 Safi, Morocco 2 Equipe de Chimie Moléculaire, Matériaux et Modélisation, Faculté Poly-disciplinaire, Université Cadi Ayyad, BP 4162, 46000 Safi, Morocco 3 Instituto de Ciencia Molecular/ICMol, Universidad de Valencia, C/. Catedrático José Beltrán 2, Paterna, 46980 Valencia, Spain Keywords Removal of dye  Persea americana-activated carbon  Surface area  Adsorption  Kinetics and thermodynamic studies Introduction The textile industry plays a part in the economy of several countries around the world. However, effluents from textile and dyeing have a low biological oxygen demand and strong chemical oxygen demand. Disposal of this colored water into receiving water can be toxic to aquatic life and cause food chain contamination, resulting in deleterious health effect even in very low concentrations. Moreover, most of these dyes can cause allergy, dermatitis, skin irritation and also provoke cancer and mutation in humans [1, 2]. Dyes are usually highly visible, very difficult to biodegrade, and extremely difficult to eliminate in natural aquatic environments [3, 4]. To improve the effluent quality, the addition of physical and/or chemical treatments comprising adsorption [5–9], photocatalytic [10, 11] or electrochemical methods [5] and reverse osmosis [12] are necessary. Adsorption is the most simple and known for the treatment of effluents containing dyes using the new low-cost and environmentally friendly adsorbents in the carbon-based or not activated means [13–18]. The potential properties of activated carbon as adsorbents are due to their highly developed porosity, favorable pore size distribution, large surface area, and high degree of surface reactivity [19]. Chemical activation and physical activation are two methods for the preparation of activated carbon. Chemical activation uses chemical agents for the preparation of activated carbon in a single step method, while physical activation involves carbonization of 123 188 Int J Ind Chem (2017) 8:187–195 carbonaceous materials followed by activation of the resulting substrate in the presence of dioxide carbon or steam as activating agents [20]. It is recognized that the carbon yields of chemical activation are higher than the physical one. The most common precursors used for the production of activated carbon are organic materials that are rich in carbon. Several studies to find low-cost carbonaceous materials have been reported. These materials include Jerusalem artichoke [21], waste rice hulls [22], homemade cocoa shell [23], waste tea [24], coir pith [25], orange peels [26], jute sticks [27], walnut [28], palm oil shell [29], Acacia mangium wood [30] and waste tires [31]. In the present study, we examine the feasibility of using activated carbon prepared using Persea americana as adsorbent for the removal of Basic Blue 41 dyes from aqueous solutions. The effect of different parameters including solution pH, adsorbent dosage, dye concentration, temperature and contact time were studied to optimize the adsorption process. The isotherm and kinetic and thermodynamic parameters were examined to analyze the experimental data. Materials and methods The Persea americana nuts were collected, washed with distilled water and dried at ambient temperature for several days. The unmodified Persea americana nuts were abbreviated as PAN. The carbonization of PAN was carried out using an appropriate weight of PAN and 25 mL concentrated phosphoric acid with a mass ratio (1:4). A glass beaker of 100 mL was heated to 500 C for 1 h producing a black carbonaceous residue. The solid material was neutralized with KOH solution until a neutral pH was obtained. The resulting carbonized Persea americana nut (C-PAN) was filtered and washed intensively with water. The C-PAN was then dried at 100 C for 2 h and kept in desiccators for further use. The characterization of C-PAN was achieved by FT-IR spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction measurements. FT-IR spectra (4000–450 cm-1 range) were recorded with a Nicolet 5700 FT-IR spectrometer on samples prepared as KBr pellets. The polycrystalline sample of each adsorbent was lightly ground in an agate mortar and pestle and filled into 0.5 mm borosilicate capillary prior to being mounted and aligned on an Empyrean PANalytical powder diffractometer using Cu Ka radiation (k = 1.54056 Å). Three repeated measurements were obtained at room temperature in the 10 \ 2h \ 60 range with a step size of 0.01. Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) images were obtained with HITACHI-S4100 equipment operated at 20 kV. 123 Adsorption–desorption isotherms of nitrogen at -196 C were measure with an automatic adsorption instrument (NOVA-1000 Gas Sorption analyzer) to determine the surface areas and total pore volumes. The BET surface area and the total pore volumes of the obtained Persea americana-activated carbon were found to be 1593 and 1.053 cm3/g, respectively. Deionized water was used throughout the experiments for solution preparation. The adsorption studies for evaluation of the C-PAN adsorbent for the removal of the Blue Basic 41 dye from aqueous solutions were carried out in triplicate using the batch contact adsorption method. Basic Blue 41 dye used in this study, abbreviated as BB41, was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich. The chemical structure of BB41 is shown in Fig. 1. For the adsorption exper (...truncated)