Carbonization of sludge biomass of water treatment plant using continuous screw type conveyer pyrolyzer for methylene blue removal

Abstract

The wide and fast growth of the textile industry has become one of the contributors to the water pollution. In this study, carbonized sludge (CS) was produced as an adsorbent for removal of methylene blue (MB) dye from aqueous solution. Sludge biomass from water treatment plant as precursor was carbonized using continuous screw type conveyer pyrolyzer at different conveyer frequency of 5 Hz and 10 Hz. Batch adsorption studies were carried out by varying MB initial concentrations (25 - 300 mg/L) and contact time (0 - 24 hours). The CS5Hz sample shows the highest surface area and total pore volume of 88.73 m2/g and 0.1417 cm3/g, respectively. This sample exhibits average pore diameter of 3.84 nm, monolayer adsorption capacity of 45.68 mg/g and well develop of pores structure. Freundlich and pseudo second order models were revealed to fit the isotherm and kinetic data, respectively with film diffusion play a major role as rate limiting step.