Comparative studies on the adsorption of textile dyes from aqueous solutions using activated carbon and polymer coated sawdust

Abstract

Wastewater from textile industries pose a threat to the environment newlineas large amount of chemically different dyes are used for various industrial newlineapplications such as textile dyeing and a significant proportion of these dyes newlineenter the environment via wastewater Many treatment processes have been newlineapplied for the removal of dyes from wastewater such as: photocatalytic newlinedegradation cation exchange membranes electrochemical degradation newlinereverse osmosis ozonation and adsorption As synthetic dyes in wastewater newlinecannot be efficiently decolorized by traditional methods the adsorption of newlinesynthetic dyes on inexpensive and efficient solid supports was considered as a newlinesimple and economical method for their removal from wastewater The newlineconversion of the agriculture wastes into activated carbon will decrease the newlinewaste disposal and also convert these wastes into valueadded product newlineThe precursor Thevetia Peruviana an abundantly available plant newlinewith no economical importance can be conveniently used for the preparation newlineof nine activated carbon by various physical and chemical activation methods newlineThe Polyaniline Coated sawdust PAC and Polypyrrole Coated sawdust newlinePPC were also synthesized on the surface of Thevetia Peruviana sawdust newlineThe physico chemical properties of all the nine different carbons newlinewere compared with PAC and PPC The activated carbon prepared from newlineH3PO4 impregnation method TPAC3 was selected to be the best in terms of newlineits properties among the nine activated carbon prepared The pore size newlinedistribution studies of the adsorbents indicated that the adsorbents are newlinemesoporous in nature The surface morphology of the activated carbon newlineTPAC3 by SEM analysis showed the honey comb like structure with large newlinenumber of pores The surface of the PAC and PPC by SEM analysis showed newlinethat sawdust was coated with polyaniline and polypyrrole particles which newlinewere spherical in shape with holes in the centre The surface has large newlinesurface area with more number of mesopores which was the main factor for newlinebetter adsorption capacity of TPAC3 PAC and PPC newline