Adsorption of dye from aqueous solution by cashew nut Shell: Studies on

equilibrium isotherm, kinetics and thermodynamics of interactions

In this article, Senthil, P. et al. (2010) talk about cashew nut Shell (CNS), that is a new low
cost adsorbent that has been used as the adsorbent for the remoal of Con!o red (which is a
secondar" dia#o d"e and water soluble, "ieldin! a red colloidal solution.) d"e from an
a$ueous solution. %he" studied the effects of different ariables such as initial d"e
concentration, time, tem&erature of adsor&tion, &' and adsorbent dose in the &erformance
of CNS in order to hae some results that can be anal"#ed, talk about them and !ie
&ractical conclusion for the CNS as an adsorbent.
(t first, the" said that wastewater effluents from different industries contain a lot of kinds
of s"nthetic d"e stuffs that are difficult to biode!rade because to their com&le) structure.
'ence it is im&eratie that a suitable treatment method should be deised. So, en!ineers
and scientist hae deelo&ed man" methods to sole that &roblem. *ne of these methods is
the adsor&tion techni$ue that is &o&ular due to its sim&licit", hi!h efficienc" and the
aailabilit" of a wide ran!e of adsorbents. 'oweer, some adsorbents do not hae !ood
adsor&tion ca&acities for anionic d"es. 'ence is a need to search for better adsorbents. So
the" introduce CNS as a new adsorbent and e)amine its effectieness in remoin! Con!o
red from a$ueous solutions lookin! for the influence of e)&erimental &arameters and
stud"in! it under e$uilibrium and arious thermod"namic conditions.
In the e)&erimental &art, the adsor&tion e)&eriments were conducted b" ar"in!
tem&erature, &', CNS dose, contact time, initial Con!o red concentration under the as&ects
of thermod"namic stud", adsor&tion isotherms and adsor&tion kinetics. In the e)&erience,
the olume of the mi)ture was ke&t at 100 ml in a 2+0 ml ,rlenme"er flask, the &h of the
solution was maintained at a s&ecific alue, the kinetic studies was carried out b" shakin!
the ,rlenme"er containin! the mi)ture of CNS and Con!o red b" ar"in! the concentration
of Con!o red from 20 to 100 m!-. in a bath shaker. %he mi)ture was a!itated with a
contact time from 0 to 120 min at 120 r&m and /0 0C. In different times the flask were
remoed from the shaker and the d"e concentration in the reaction mi)ture was e)amined
b" measurin! the absorbance of the su&ernatant at the waelen!th that corres&ond to the
ma)imum absorbance of the sam&le. *n the other hand, in the thermod"namic stud", the
e)&eriments were carried out b" ar"in! tem&erature from /0 to 10 0C and the e$uilibrium
stud" was &erformed usin! arious concentrations of Con!o red solutions from 20 to 100
m!-.. (ll of these e)&eriments were &erformed in du&licates.
2or the 3esults and discussion &art, the characteri#ation of CNC, effect of &', effect of
adsorbent dose, effect of initial d"e concentration, effect of contact time, effect of
tem&erature, thermod"namic stud", the adsor&tion e$uilibrium stud" and the adsor&tion
&rocesses were shown. (lso, &articular comments for each one are !oin! to be shown then4
Characterization of CNS
%he adsor&tion ca&acit" of CNS de&ends on man" factors. 5nowin! that one of these is the
reactiit" of the functional !rou&s at the surface, the 2ourier transform infrared
s&ectrosco&"6 which is a techni$ue used to obtain and infrared s&ectrum of absor&tion6 of
the CNS and the Con!o red loaded on CNS was used and indicates the &resence of
h"dro)"l !rou&s, carbo)"lic !rou&s, C6' ali&hatic bendin!, C6N bonds from amine, P*2.
%hese results a!ree with the surface of other a!ricultural bio&roducts. (lso, for the 2%6I3
s&ectrosco&" can be concluded that amine an *' !rou& were included in the adsor&tion of
Con!o red.
Effect of pH
5nowin! that as the &' of the CNS increase, the number of ne!atie char!es increases and
the number of &ositie char!es decrease. ( ne!atiel" char!ed surface site on the CNS is
not !ood for the adsor&tion of anionic d"e molecules due to the electrostatic re&ulsion. In
contrast, as the CNS surface ac$uires &ositie char!e at low &', a stron! electrostatic
attraction a&&ears between the CNS and the d"e molecule leadin! to ma)imum adsor&tion
of d"e. 2or the e)&eriment, !ra&hical results show that the ma)imum remoal of d"e is
reached at &' / and below.
Effect of adsorbent dose
%he !ra&hical results show that as we increase the adsorbent dose, the &ercenta!e of Con!o
red that is remoed increases. %his is because a 7)ed dose of CNS can onl" adsorb a certain
amount of d"e. %herefore, the more the adsorbent dosa!e, the lar!er the olume of ef8uent
can be &urif"in! with a 7)ed dosa!e of CNS.
Effect of initial dye concentration
%he inesti!ation of this &arameter shows that an increase of the initial d"e concentration
&roduces a decrease of the &ercenta!e of Con!o red that is remoed decrease.
Effect of contact time
2or the contact time, the results indicate that in the first 10 minutes the CNS adsorbent with
showed ra&id adsor&tion of d"e and thereafter, the adsor&tion rate decreased !raduall" until
reached e$uilibrium at 90 minutes of contact time. (n increase in the contact time showed
that the Con!o red remoal b" CNS was small (0.2:).Since the difference in the
adsor&tion
alues at 90 min and at 120 minutes is er" small, after 90 minutes contact, a stead"6state
a&&ro)imation was assumed.
Effect of temperature
%he e)&eriments were &erformed at different tem&eratures of /0, ;0, +0 and 10 0C for the
initial C3 concentrations at constant adsorbent dose. %he results show that a rise in the
tem&erature &roduces a decrease in the &ercenta!e of remoal Con!o red.
Thermodynamic study
2or the thermod"namic stud", the &arameters such as free ener!" (<=0), enthal&" (<'0)
and entro&" (<S0) chan!e of adsor&tion were ealuated and all !iin! ne!aties alues. (
lo!5c ersus 1-% !ra&h was &lotted. %he &lots were used to com&ute the alues of
thermod"namic &arameters. %he ne!atie <=0 alue indicates the &rocess is feasible and
s&ontaneous nature of adsor&tion> ne!atie <'0 alue su!!ests the e)othermic nature of
adsor&tion and the <S0 can be used to describe the randomness at the CNS6solution
interface durin! the sor&tion.
Adsorption equilibrium study
2or this &art, .an!muir, 2reundlich, 3edlich?Peterson, 5oble?Corri!an, Si&s, %oth,
%emkin and @ubinin?3adushkeich e$uations were used in order to hae an ade$uate
model that can re&roduce the e)&erimental results obtained. %his was done because
adsor&tion isotherms hae an im&ortant role in the determination of the ma)imum ca&acit"
of adsor&tion. ,ach isotherm was &lotted and the alue of 32 was found for each one. It
was found that e)&erimental data fits better with 3edlich6Peterson isotherm.
Adsorption Kinetics
In the stud" of the adsor&tion 5inetics, a &seudo first order, &seudo second order and
intra&article diffusion kinetic e$uation were used. %he results show that &seudo first order
does not fit with the e)&erimental data but for the &seudo second order show hi!h
correlations with the e)&erimental data.
(fter anal"#in! all of these &arameters and the results that the" &roduce, the conclusion
were that CNS can be a !ood o&tion to use as an alternate adsorbent for C3 remoal. %he
CNS a&&eared to be suitable for the remoal of Con!o red from a$ueous solutions.