Application of activated carbon derived from ‘waste’ bamboo culms for the adsorption of azo disperse dye: Kinetic, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies

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Abstract

The utilization of activated carbon derived from ‘waste’ bamboo culms (BAC) for the removal of Disperse Red 167 (DR167), an azo disperse dye, was investigated. Studies of the properties of the adsorbent, the effect of contact time, the initial pH of the solution, the initial concentration of the dye solution and temperature indicated that a low initial pH or concentration of dye solution favors the adsorption process; temperature exerts a greater effect on the removal of azo disperse red 167 dye from aqueous solution. Kinetic and isotherm data were fitted to five non-linear kinetic and nine non-linear isotherm equations. In addition, the fits were evaluated in terms of the non-linear coefficient, Chi-square test, Marquardt's percent standard deviation error function and small-sample-corrected Akaike Information Criterion (AICc) methodology. The results showed that the AICc analysis was the best statistical tool for analyzing the data, the intra-particle diffusion and the pseudo-first-order models played important roles in the controlling rate step, and the Temkin equation best described the BAC isotherm data. Furthermore, the thermodynamic analysis indicated that the adsorption was a spontaneous, endothermic, entropy-increasing and physical process. Two types of commercial activated carbon, Filtrasorb 400 and Filtrasorb (F400 and F300), were used as contrast adsorbents. The contrast experiments revealed that BAC exhibits similar properties to F400 and F300. The utilization of bamboo wastes as carbon precursors is feasible.

Highlights

► AICc would be a better tool to rank nonlinear kinetic and nonlinear isotherm models. ► The intra-particle diffusion and pseudo-first-order were the dominant rate-limiting steps. ► The nonlinear Temkin model described the adsorption isotherm of BAC well. ► ‘Waste’ bamboo culms are effective adsorbents of disperse red 167 dye.

Introduction

Azo disperse dyes have mostly been used in coloration of textiles, such as polyester, nylon, acetate, cellulose and acrylic, due to their bright colors, excellent color fastness and ease of application (Agudelo et al., 2008; Burkinshaw et al., 2011). The concentration of disperse dyes could be in the μg L−1 level in textile wastewater (Şahin et al., 2007). It is well known that azo dyes are toxic to aquatic organisms and carcinogenic and mutagenic to humans. Therefore, in order to effectively avoid the environmental problems caused by these pollutants and their hazardous effects on living beings, it is necessary to develop methods for the removal of azo dyes from textile wastewater before being discharged to water bodies. At present, these methods include the use of coagulation/flocculation (Meriç et al., 2005; Phalakornkule et al., 2010), oxidation (Körbahti, 2009; Gokkus and Ciner, 2010), photocatalytic processes (Paschoal et al., 2009; Gupta et al., 2011b), membrane technology (Dhale and Mahajani, 2000; Kim et al., 2007) and biological treatments (Gerçel et al., 2008; Srinivasan and Viraraghavan, 2010). However, these processes have disadvantages and limitations, such as high cost, generation of secondary pollutants and poor removal efficiency. Thus, adsorption has been found to be an effective and attractive process for the treatment of these wastewaters (Gupta et al., 2005, 2006a, b, 2008, 2011a; Ali and Gupta, 2007). However, the preparation and regeneration of carbon adsorbents are fairly expensive, which hampers their application. Hence, a considerable amount of interest has recently been focused on the production of activated carbons from low-cost wastes for the removal of dyes from wastewater (Gupta et al., 2004, 2007, 2008, 2006a, b; Crini, 2006; Gupta and Ali, 2008; Demirbas, 2009; Gupta and Suhas, 2009).

China has rich bamboo forests because of its location at the center of bamboo's distribution. In China, there are approximately 400 species of bamboo in 35 genera, which is one third of the total number of species in the world. Bamboo has become a renewable organic resource for sustainable development and has been used in construction, clothing, household appliances and entertainment materials to make different products. However, the un-utilized bamboo residues are often dumped or burnt as wastes, which results in pollution. Therefore, the conversion of ‘waste’ bamboo culms into activated carbons would add considerable economic value, help reduce the cost of waste disposal and, most importantly, provide a potentially inexpensive alternative to the existing commercial activated carbons. In fact, bamboo culms are excellent precursors for active carbon due to their moderately high carbon content (48.64%) and low nitrogen (0.14%), sulfur (0.11%) and hydrogen (6.75%) content (Edward et al., 2008). Furthermore, bamboo-based activated carbons have been used for the treatment of heavy metal ions (Wang et al., 2008; Lalhruaitluanga et al., 2010), ammonia (Asada et al., 2006) and dyes (Ahmad and Hameed, 2010; Mui et al., 2010; Hameed et al., 2007; Wang and Yan, 2011).

In this work, the collected ‘waste’ bamboo culms from a local bamboo chopstick plant were used as precursors to prepare activated carbons by low temperature chemical activation using ortho-phosphoric acid. C.I. Disperse Red 167 (DR167), a diazo dye widely applied to different kinds of products, including leather, silk, nylon, fabric, wool and fur due to its bright color, complete chromatogram, high washing fastness and lighting fastness. The dye adsorption tests were conducted on the produced bamboo activated carbon and compared with commercially available carbons (Calgon F300 and F400, obtained from Calgon Carbon (Tianjin) Co., Ltd). The adsorption properties and mechanism of the produced activated carbon for DR167 removal was evaluated using the most common kinetic and equilibrium models in their non-linear forms.

Section snippets

Adsorbate

Disperse Red 167 (analytical grade, C22H24ClN5O7, λmax = 464 nm), supplied by Hongda Group Co., Ltd. (Zhejiang, China), was chosen as the adsorbate and was used without any purification. The chemical structure of the dye is depicted in Fig. 1. Distilled water was used to prepare the desired concentration of the dye solution and a spectrophotometer (UV-2401, Shimadzu) was employed to measure the concentration of dye at λmax using a standard calibration curve.

Adsorbents

The ‘waste’ bamboo culms were washed

Characteristics of adsorbents

Table 3 lists the physicochemical properties of BAC, F400 and F300. The SBET value and the total pore volume of BAC are smaller than those of F400 and F300, indicating that the dye adsorption capacities of F400 and F300 are much higher than that of BAC. Table 3 also shows that the pHpzc values of all the studied adsorbents are lower than 7. Fig. 2 is an SEM image of BAC. It shows many large regular and orderly pores on the surface of BAC. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that

Conclusion

The adsorption properties and mechanisms of F300, F400 and BAC for disperse 167 dye from its aqueous solution have been investigated and compared under prescribed conditions of the initial solution pH, dye concentration, contact time and temperature. Five non-linear kinetic models and nine non-linear isotherm models were fit to the experimental data and ranked based on the statistical analysis tools such as a non-linear Chi-square test, Marquardt's percent standard deviation error function and

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