Removal Of Crystal Violet Dye From Aqueous Solution with Pistachio Shell Powder: Optimization Of Process By Taguchi Method

Abstract

For environmental applications, the production of inexpensive but superior adsorbents is essential. The Taguchi method was applied as an experimental design in this paper to determine the optimum conditions for the removal of crystal violet dye using pistachio shell powder in batch experiments. The effects of pH (3–9), initial dye concentration (2–10 mg•L-1), contact time (30–360 mins) and adsorbent dose (0.25–4 g•L-1) were studied using an L16 orthogonal array in order to achieve the maximum dye removal. For a "the-larger-the-better" response, the percent dye removal was transformed into an accurate S/N ratio. In the studied range for various parameters, the optimal condition was found to be pH = 6, initial dye concentration=10 mg•L-1, contact time=360 mins and adsorbent dose = 4 g•L-1. Under the optimum conditions, dye removal percentage was obtained to be 93.6±0.1%. The analysis of variance results indicate that percentage contribution of control factor in descending order is adsorbent dose (33.17%) > initial dye concentration (27.43%) > pH (22.89%) > contact time (16.52%).