Biosorption of Acid Blue 5 by Biomass Derived from Eichhornia crassipes: Batch and Column Studies

Abstract

Biosorption of Acid Blue 5 dye by the Eichhornia crassipes was investigated in batch and column studies. Batch experiments were conducted to study the effect of initial solution pH and dye concentration. Langmuir and Freundlich sorption models were used to represent the equilibrium data. Experimental breakthrough curves in a column were obtained with bed height (5, 10 and 15 cm), flow rate (20, 25 and 30mL/min) and initial dye concentration (50, 75 and 100 mg/L). An increase in bed height and initial dye concentration favors the dye biosorption, while the minimum flow rate produced maximum dye biosorption. It was observed that the uptake of Acid Blue 5 using a bed height of 15 cm, flow rate of 20 mL/min and initial dye concentration of 100 mg/L was found to be more when compared to all other bed height, flow rate and initial dye concentration studied in the present investigation. The Bed Depth Service Time (BDST) model was used for the evaluation of continuous sorption data.