Removal of remazol brilliant blue dye from dye-contaminated water by adsorption using red mud: Equilibrium, kinetic, and thermodynamic studies

Abstract

Utilization of industrial solid wastes for the treatment of wastewater from another industry could help environmental pollution abatement, in solving both solid waste disposal as well as liquid waste problems. Red mud (RM) is a waste product in the production of alumina and it poses serious pollution hazard. The present paper focuses on the possibility of utilization of RM as an adsorbent for removal of Remazol Brilliant Blue dye (RBB), a reactive dye from dye-contaminated water. Adsorption of RBB, from dye-contaminated water was studied by adsorption on powdered sulfuric acid-treated RM. The effect of initial dye concentration, contact time, initial pH, and adsorbent dosage were studied. Langmuir isotherm model has been found to represent the equilibrium data for RBB-RM adsorption system better than Freundlich model. The adsorption capacity of RM was found to be 27.8 mg dye/g of adsorbent at 40 °C. Thermodynamic analysis showed that adsorption of RBB on acid-treated RM is an endothermic reaction with ?H0 of 28.38 kJ/mol. The adsorption kinetics is represented by second-order kinetic model and the kinetic constant was estimated to be 0.0105 ± 0.005 g/mgmin. Validity of intra-particle diffusion kinetic model suggested that among the mass transfer processes during the dye adsorption process, pore diffusion is the controlling step and not the film diffusion. The process can serve dual purposes of utilization of an industrial solid waste and the treatment of liquid waste. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012.