Low‐cost biosorbent based on Moringa oleifera residues for herbicide atrazine removal in a fixed‐bed column

Abstract

AbstractA low‐cost biosorbent based on Moringa oleifera Lam (MO) seed husks was used in order to remove atrazine (ATZ) from aqueous solutions in a continuous system. The influence of some parameters, such as bed depth, flow rate, pH, and inlet concentration, on ATZ biosorption was investigated. The breakthrough and saturation time increased with the increase of bed depth. However, the opposite behaviour was observed for the flow rate. The sorption capacity, breakthrough, and saturation time were similar at all values of pH tested. Increasing the inlet concentration, the MO sorption capacity also increased, while the breakthrough and saturation time decreased. The Adams‐Bohart, Thomas, dose‐response, and Yoon‐Nelson models were applied to predict the breakthrough curves. All models showed good agreement with the experimental data, presenting good values of the correlation coefficient (R2). The results showed that MO seed husks can be effectively used as a biosorbent to remove the atrazine in aqueous solutions, achieving five cycles of biosorption‐desorption without loss of biosorption capacity, which demonstrates the potential of MO as a biosorbent for the removal of ATZ being a low‐cost and efficient alternative to the use of conventional materials.