Valorization of snail shell (Hélixaspersa) from Tangier-Tetouan region (north of Morocco): An application to eliminate methylene blue

Abstract

Removal of industrial waste becomes increasingly critical for environmental protection. This study aims to search for effective and less expensive adsorbents in order to remove methylene blue (MB) commonly used in many industrial sectors. To this end, we experiment Helix aspersa snail shell as a biosorbent for the removal of MB. The raw snail shells were cleaned, smashed, and characterized afterwards using a scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with an energy dispersive X-Ray analysis (EDX) and by X-ray diffraction. Different parameters were tested in order to identify the optimal conditions for the effective removal of MB. Our experimental results showed that, within the first ten minutes, a remarkable elimination of methylene blue dye reaching a percentage of 82%, with the following optimal conditions; 3.5 g of the adsorbent, initial MB concentration of 20 mg/L, the temperature of 15 °C, and agitation of 250 rpm. This study showed that the use of snail shell waste has inevitably a positive impact on the protection of the environment, in particular, the purification of industrial effluents.