A comparative study for the electrochemical regeneration of adsorbents loaded with methylene blue

Abstract

The electrochemical regeneration of methylene blue-saturated activated carbon, Nyex®1000 and sawdust has been studied and the performances in terms of capacity of adsorbent regeneration have been compared in this work. The adsorption isotherms were investigated. The results showed that the adsorption of methylene blue onto the investigated adsorbents obeyed Langmuir’s model. The electrochemical oxidation of methylene blue beforehand adsorbed was studied using a boron doped diamond anode. The electrochemical regeneration efficiencies, under the same experimental conditions, of the activated carbon and Nyex®1000 were significantly less than 100% which were much lower to that of sawdust. Indeed the electrolysis tends to activate the sawdust because all the regeneration efficiencies obtained, whatever the applied current intensity, are higher than 100 %. Increasing treatment time would also result in a better regeneration of sawdust. This study confirmed that the coupling adsorption onto sawdust and electrochemical degradation is a potential technique for the efficient elimination of low concentration organic dyes from wastewater.