Sorption of Methylene Blue Dye from Aqueous Solution Using an Agricultural Waste

Abstract

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.