Abstract
BackgroundThe release of hazardous synthetic dyes into industrial effluents has emerged as an environmental problem requiring remediation. The present study focused on the preparation of a new and environmentally-friendly material (adsorbent) for the remediation of hazardous dyes from aqueous solution. The low cost adsorbent was prepared from locally available khat (Catha edulis) stem which considered as waste and accumulated on waste disposal areas of Woldia town, Ethiopia. Comprehensive characterization studies were carried out on the bio-adsorbent such as proximate analyses, specific surface area, point of zero charge and FT-IR analysis.ResultsThe proximate analysis shows the prepared adsorbent has very high fixed carbon content (83.65%), which refers to high quality of the adsorbent. The adsorption performance of the prepared activated carbon was optimized by varying operational parameters such as initial dye concentration (10 mg/L), pH (10), dosage (0.5 g), and contact time (60 min). The maximum removal efficiency of the prepared adsorbent at those optimum conditions was 98.8%. The experimental data was tested by most common kinetics and isotherm models. It was observed that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model fits better with good correlation coefficient and the equilibrium data fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm model.ConclusionIn summery this study demonstrated that the waste bio sorbent could be employed as an effective and eco-friendly alternative for the cleanup of dye-polluted aqueous system.
Highlights
The release of hazardous synthetic dyes into industrial effluents has emerged as an environmental problem requiring remediation
The present study focused on the development activated carbon from khat (Catha edulis) stem by physical and chemical activation process for removal of basic cationic dye from aqueous solutions
This is due to carbonization and activation processes, organic substances become unstable as a result of the heat causing the molecules to break their bonds and linkages and volatile matter is released as gas and a liquid product which evaporates off leaving a material with high carbon content (Bello et al 2017)
Summary
The release of hazardous synthetic dyes into industrial effluents has emerged as an environmental problem requiring remediation. The present study focused on the preparation of a new and environmentally-friendly material (adsorbent) for the remediation of hazardous dyes from aqueous solution. One of the major problems faced by many countries around the world is the increase in industrial activities releases effluents containing pollutants such as heavy metal ions, organic dyes and pharmaceuticals into the aquatic environment, which cause significant health hazards to living organisms and overall deterioration of the environment (Deng et al 2011; Munagapati et al 2018; Nhung et al 2018). Most of these dyes can cause allergy, dermatitis, skin irritation and provoke cancer and mutation in humans (Ghaedi et al 2015; Regti et al 2017) Their removal from industrial effluents before discharge into the environment is extremely important. Various new materials with interesting adsorption capacities that can be used on sorption processes are discovered every year
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