Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

This research deals with the highly available sugar industry waste material, press mud as low cost biosorbent for the removal of textile dyestuff from aqueous medium, and the investigation of the probably involved physiochemical mechanisms. Experiments were carried out in batch reactor. The results of equilibrium studies showed that equilibrium state was reached within 48 h of exposure time and maximum biosorption taken place at the biosorbent dosage of 30 mg/ml of solution. Secondly, several biosorption kinetic models were applied to fit the experimental data, namely Lagergren irreversible first-order, Reversible first-order, Pseudo-second-order, Elovich and intraparticle diffusion models. The proposed explanations were deduced from the theoretical assumptions behind the most appropriate model(s), which could satisfactorily describe the present biosorption phenomenon. The interpretation of the related results have shown that, with R² of about 99%, the pseudo-second order model is the most suitable dynamic theory describing the biosorption of dye onto press mud predicting therefore a chemisorption process.
Keywords: Biosorption, press mud, dye, kinetic modeling.