Epicarp and mesocarp of babassu (Orbignya speciosa): characterization and application in copper phtalocyanine dye removal

Adriana P Vieira,Cícero W B Bezerra,Claudio Airoldi,Sirlane A A Santana,Júlio C P De Melo,Hildo A S Silva,Edson C Da Silva Filho,José A P Chaves

doi:10.1590/s0103-50532011000100003

Abstract

The mesocarp and epicarp components of the babassu palm tree were applied as novel alternative biosorbents for copper phtalocyanine textile dye removal from aqueous solutions. The natural biopolymers were characterized by elemental analyses, solid state 13C NMR, infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and X-ray diffractometry. Results demonstrated that the compositions of the mesocarp and epicarp are similar to those of other lignocellulosic materials, and that they were very effective for removal of the textile dye Turquoise Remazol. A pseudo second-order kinetic model resulted in the best fit with experimental data for both epicarp and mesocarp (R2 = 0.999), providing rate constants of sorption, k2, of 0.31 and 1.43 g mg-1 min-1, respectively. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were employed for adsorption analysis of the experimental data in their linearized forms. The second model resulted in the better fit for Turquoise Remazol dye, which presented maximum adsorption of 1.44 and 2.38 mg g-1 at pH 6.0 for mesocarp and epicarp, respectively.

Highlights

Environmental pollution, in general, is one of the most serious problems confronted by society and is directly linked to industrial development, with textile activitiesEpicarp and Mesocarp of Babassu (Orbignya speciosa)J
Elemental analysis gave for mesocarp 39.23, 6.70, 0.33; epicarp 46.72, 6.12, 0.51 and cellulose 41.95, 6.21, 0.18% for carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, respectively
These results show that the mesocarp and epicarp biopolymers obtained from low cost babassu byproducts have elemental compositions close to that of cellulose

Summary

Introduction

Environmental pollution, in general, is one of the most serious problems confronted by society and is directly linked to industrial development, with textile activitiesEpicarp and Mesocarp of Babassu (Orbignya speciosa)J. The band at 1639 cm-1 corresponds to d(O-H) of the hydroxyl groups of the cellulose structure and those between 1200 to 1000 cm-1 are related to n(C-O).[35] The spectra of mesocarp and epicarp are shown in Figures 2 (b) and (c), respectively.

Results

Conclusion