Adsorption of natural dyes on clay fixed on polymers

Abstract

The main purpose of this work was to produce a pellet to minimize undesirable effects in fixed beds, such as colmatation, through clay fixation on the surface of polymeric particles. Preliminary experiments were carried out by heating the clay, namely Tonsil Terrana 580FF, in order to observe variations on its capacity to adsorb anthocyanins derived from red cabbage. Clays was fixed on five samples of high density polyethylene (HDPE) at 180°C-210°C for two hours. The morphological analyses of the resulting particles were accomplished through Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The experiments demonstrated an increase on clay's adsorptive capacity of 15.65% at 120°C for 30 hours and 16.80% at 170°C for two hours. The SEM analysis showed that the clay particles adhered on the external surface of the pellets. These results show that it is possible to obtain polymeric pellets using HDPE coated with clay.