Résumé:
Millions of tons of prickly (peel) bark of cactus fruit (PBCF) are produced per year.
This work is to use this agricultural waste as a low cost biomaterial for the treatment
of water contaminated with organic pollutant. PBCF has been characterized by
several analytical techniques i.e. SEM, EDS and FTIR spectroscopy. In addition, the
determination of iodine value which gives information on area surface. PBCF were
used to remove Methylene blue (MB) from the aqueous solution. Experiments
were carried out as function of contact time, initial dose of PBCF, initial pH aqueous
solution, initial concentration of MB (90-2000 mg L-1), and temperature (20-40°C).
The pseudo-second-order was the best applicable model to describe the sorption
of MB by Prickly bark of cactus fruit. The equilibrium sorption data of Methylene
blue by Prickly barks of cactus fruit were analysed by Langmuir and Freundlich
models. The preliminary results indicate that the Langmuir model provides the
best correlation of the experimental data with an important capacity of sorption
of Methylene blue onto Prickly bark of cactus fruit (222.22 mg g-1). Moreover the
parameters of the Freundlich model showing that the sorption of MB onto PBCF
is favourable. Finally, the sorption capacity of PBCF is compared to those of other
sorbents materials reported in the literature.
