Olive stone as an eco-friendly bio-adsorbent for elimination of methylene blue dye from industrial wastewater

Abstract

Adsorbents synthesized by activation and nanoparticle surface modifications are expensive and might pose health and ecological risks. Therefore, the interest in raw waste biomass materials as adsorbents is growing. In batch studies, an inexpensive and effective adsorbent is developed from raw olive stone (OS) to remove methylene blue (MB) from an aqueous solution. The OS adsorbent is characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area. Four isotherms are used to fit equilibrium adsorption data, and four kinetic models are used to simulate kinetic adsorption behavior. The obtained BET surface area is 0.9 m2 g−1, and the SEM analysis reveals significant pores in the OS sample that might facilitate the uptake of heavy compounds. The Langmuir and Temkin isotherm models best represent the adsorbtion of MB on the OS, with a maximum monolayer adsorption capacity of 44.5 mg g−1. The best dye color removal efficiency by the OS is 93.65% from an aqueous solution of 20 ppm at the OS doses of 0.2 g for 90 min contact time. The OS adsorbent serves in five successive adsorption cycles after a simple filtration-washing-drying process, maintaining MB removal efficiency of 91, 85, 80, and 78% in cycles 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The pseudo second-order model is the best model to represent the adsorption process dynamics. Indeed, the pseudo second-order and the Elovich models are the most appropriate kinetic models, according to the correlation coefficient (R2) values (1.0 and 0.935, respectively) derived from the four kinetic models. The parameters of the surface adsorption are also predicted based on the mass transfer models of intra-particle diffusion and Bangham and Burt. According to the thermodynamic analysis, dye adsorption by the OS is endothermic and spontaneous. As a result, the OS material offers an efficient adsorbent for MB removal from wastewater that is less expensive, more ecologically friendly, and economically viable.