Adsorption of methylene blue using water treatment sludge as a low cost adsorbent

What is it about?

Abstract In this research, aluminium-based drinking water treatment sludge is used as a starting material to prepare sodium alginate as a low cost adsorbent to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions. The studied variables included pH, adsorbent dose, initial MB concentration and contact time. Characteristics of the adsorbent were also studied using scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). It was revealed from kinetic tests that removal efficiency of MB was 88.5% under the optimum conditions of pH 8, initial MB concentration of 50 mg/L, contact time of 60 min, and adsorbent dose of 0.3 g/L. The oxygen functional groups such as –OH, C–O–C and C=O were found on the surface of developed adsorbent by FTIR. In addition, the adsorption data fitted well the Langmuir adsorption model with the maximum sorption capacity of 909.1 mg/g, and followed the pseudo–second order kinetics. Findings of this study indicate that the prepared adsorbent is promising for further development of an effective and economical adsorbent material in the near future.

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Why is it important?

In this study, drinking water treatment sludge is used to prepare low cost adsorbent through modification with sodium alginate to remove methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions. It was revealed that removal efficiency of MB was 88.5% under the optimum conditions with the maximum sorption capacity of 909.1 mg/g.

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