Adsorption Isotherms and Kinetic Studies of Congo-Red Removal from Waste Water Using Activated Carbon Prepared from Jujube Seed

Abstract

In this study, adsorption of Congo red dye onto activated carbon prepared from Jujube (Ziziphus Mauritiania) seeds with phosphoric acid as the activating agent was investigated. Batch adsorption studies were carried out to study the influence of contact time, adsorbent dosage and initial dye concentration on the adsorption. The data was analysed using pseudo-first order and pseudo-second order kinetic models. The pseudo-second order kinetic model was found to describe the adsorption more effectively with a perfect correlation coefficient of unity. The rate constant, K was obtained as 0.182 (g/mg min) and the calculated qe (9.81) is very close to the experimental value (9.78). A high correlation coefficient obtained when the data was analysed with the intraparticle diffusion rate equation, revealed the presence of intraparticle diffusion in the adsorption process even though it is not the sole controlling step as shown by the value of the intercept (C ≠ 0). Isotherm studies showed that there is high correlation in each case when the data was modelled with Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevic isotherm models but the best fit was obtained with the Freundlich model with R2 = 0.9991, adsorption capacity, KF = 19.73 (mg/g)(mg/L)1/n and n = 1.563 indicating the adsorption is favourable and occurs on a heterogeneous surface by multilayer. The study showed that activated carbon from jujube seeds is an effective adsorbent for the removal of Congo red dye from solution.