Efficient removal of methyl orange and rhodamine-B dyes with low cost banana peel activated carbon

Abstract

Acid activated carbon obtained from cheap, non-toxic and locally available banana peel was used as a low cost and efficient adsorbent for the removal of dyes methyl orange and rhodamine-B from the aqueous solution. Changes in the resulting material before and after activation and after treatment were studied by different techniques, such as SEM-EDX, XRD, FTIR measurements. Effects of duration of treatment, amount of banana peel activated carbon, pH, and initial methyl orange and rhodamine-B concentration, on the removal of dye were studied to get optimum conditions for maximum dye removal. Removal efficiency of the activated ash remains almost constant in a wide range of pH from 2.5 to 5.6. In 75 min at room temperature removal of 98.5 % methyl orange (anionic) and 99.0 % rhodamine-B (cationic) dyes with 0.1 g and 0.125 g, respectively was obtained from the contaminated water having 10 ppm dye concentration.