Removing reactive and acid dyes from single and binary solutions by adsorption on quaternized kenaf core fibers

• Main Author: Al-Tharwani, Intidhar Jabir Idan
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/69979/1/FK%202017%2082%20-%20IR.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/69979/
• Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia

It is estimated that every year 280,000 tonnes of textile dyes are released in textile mill effluent, and unfortunately, all factories are still using water streams for discharging their effluent water. In the wastewater treatment plant, activated carbon is a widely used adsorbent to remove many types of dyes, but it is very expensive. Therefore, adsorption by utilizing different types of agro-residues is one of the alternative materials to remove various types of dyes from solutions. In the present research, kenaf core fiber (KCF) residue was chemically modified with (3-chloro-2-hydroxypropyl) trimethylammonium chloride to alter the surface properties to capture anionic dyes from aqueous solution. Batch adsorption studies were conducted to investigate the performance of quartenized kenaf core fiber (QKCF) to remove Reactive Red-RB, Reactive Black-5, Acid Blue-25, and Acid Green-25 from a single system. Various parameters such as initial dye concentration, adsorbent dosage, agitation speed, contact time, temperature and pH were investigated for the single solution system. The present research explored the suitability of quaternized kenaf core fiber (QKCF) to serve as an adsorbent for the removal of anionic dyes from a binary system. The effects of initial dye concentration, contact time, pH, equilibrium isotherm modelling and mechanism of dye adsorption in a binary system onto QKCF were studied in a batch system, while operation parameters which include inlet dye concentration, flow rate, and bed height were studied in a fixed bed column system. The results showed that the maximum percentage removal from the single system were 98.10%, 99.58%,99.63% and 99.60% for RR, RB, AB and AG dyes respectively. In addition, the equilibrium data were best represented by the Langmuir isotherm model with maximum adsorption capacity of 185.20, 294.12, 303.03 and 344.83 mg/g for RR, RB, AB and AG dyes respectively, and the kinetic data were found to follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Moreover, the maximum percentage removal reached up to 97.8% and 99.60% for RR and RB dyes respectively from the binary solution, while the maximum percentage removal reached up to 99.96% and 99.60% for AB and AG dyes respectively from the binary solution. The fixed bed column showed better performance with lower influent dye concentration, less flow rate of the influent and higher adsorbent bed depth. Overall, the present study showed that QKCF is a potential adsorbent for anionic dye removal from aqueous solutions either in a batch or a fixed bed column system.